‘New York Magazine’ Hacked After Cosby Cover Drops, Hacker ThreatKing Claims Responsibility For DDoS Attack


Just hours after New York Magazine revealed its powerful cover that features 35 alleged victims of Bill Cosby, the entire website was virtually inaccessible. What was originally thought to be a hack in an attempt to silence Cosby’s reported victims turned out to be a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) — which works by overloading a website’s servers with traffic, causing it to shut down — by a disgruntled tourist after a bad trip to the Big Apple.

The hacker behind the attack, who goes by the name ThreatKing, spoke to the Daily Dot over Skype about his hack on the magazine. He stated that it had nothing to do with the Cosby cover. It was actually related to his hatred of the city itself, and all things associated with it — including magazines that bear its name.

“Many stupid people at [sic] New York. I have not even seen the cover, LOL. I went to new York 2 months ago. It was really bad. Someone pranked me. Everyone started laughing and shit. The first 10 hours being there. Some African-American tried to prank me with a fake hand gun.”

The hacker went on to say that he “[wants] to see people die at [sic] New York,” and that “I’ve seen many pranks gone wrong at new york. That got me pissed. That’s why I chose New York.”

ThreatKing, posting as VikingDom2016 on Twitter, wrote that the website would be down for hours, and as New York Magazine — and the Cosby cover — were only back online around noon today, it appears he was telling the truth. His Twitter account seems to have been suspended, however, though a new user, by the name of VikingDom2017 is claiming to be the same hacker.

During the hacker’s Skype chat with the Daily Dot, ThreatKing sent a link to a SoundCloud page with a recording on it, titled “Warning Message to the United States.”

“We are going to destroy state websites, city websites, agency websites and court websites of the United States. You have took away our country and its time to get it back by destroying the United States.”

ThreatKing also sent a link to a Twitter list of more potential websites he wishes to hack, all containing the words “New York.” The list includes the New York Times, New York Yankees, and New York City FBI.

Though the hack on New York Magazine may not have been in relation to the release of the Cosby cover — even though it happened not long after it dropped — ThreatKing definitely picked an opportune time to hack the magazine, when it would have benefited most from the extra traffic the cover brought to the website.

[Image via New York Magazine]

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