Popular GMO watchdog site targeted with cyber attacks

Wednesday, October 24, 2012 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: GMwatch, cyber attacks, GMOs

(NaturalNews) An unidentified entity is waging an all-out war against a popular watchdog website that covers issues related to genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). The website GMWatch.org, which describes itself as "an independent organization that seeks to counter the enormous corporate political power and propaganda of the biotech industry and its supporters," says its servers have been repeatedly attacked in recent days by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), which has caused the site to become inaccessible to many of its regular readers.

According to an announcement recently made by GMWatch.org, the website has had sporadic operability and a "reduced homepage" as a result of this latest "cyber attack," which is one of many that has taken place in the past 14 months. To ensure that its readers have full access to the site's content, GMWatch.org is directing people to its Twitter page where all the information intended for the primary website is being linked.

That Twitter page can be accessed, even without a registered account, here:
http://twitter.com/gmwatch

"A new campaign of aggressive DDoS attacks reached a new pitch yesterday, but we're doing everything we possibly can to keep our site online," says the announcement, which was posted on October 5. "This, of course, is not the first time we've been subject to attempts to shut down our site."

Because of these repeated attempts to take down the main website, GMWatch.org maintains its mailing list data independent of its website. The group's Powerbase website, which is basically a Wikipedia-style database that contains articles on the people and groups pushing GMOs behind the scenes, is also hosted elsewhere and is reportedly not affected by the latest attack.

You can view the full GMWatch.org announcement here: http://www.gmwatch.org

Is Monsanto behind string of DDoS attacks against GMWatch.org?

With less than a month until Californians get the historic opportunity to mandate that GMOs be labeled at the retail level in their state, it is highly suspicious that GMWatch.org is all of a sudden sustaining some of the worst cyber attacks it has had to deal with yet. Is this a concerted attempt by the biotechnology industry to censor the truth before this important election, or is the timing of the attacks just one giant coincidence?

DDoS attacks typically occur against large, often controversial, entities such as corrupt banks and corporations, not groups like GMWatch.org that exist solely for the purpose of exposing corruption and spreading truth. The only entities that would have any legitimate interest in targeting and destroying the efforts of groups like GMWatch.org are the very corporations that GMWatch.org is trying to expose, which include major industry players like Monsanto, DuPont, BASF, and Dow.

There is no definitive proof as of yet that these entities are indeed responsible for the attacks. But it is quite interesting that they are occurring at a time when the GMO issue is taking center stage in the public debate over honesty in food labeling.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.gmwatch.org

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com