Hacker takes down New York Magazine during crucial Cosby cover story

Update 8:43 a.m. PT: New York Magazine appears to be back online.

On Sunday night, New York Magazine published the stories of 35 women who say they were raped by Bill Cosby.

But you currently can’t read it, because a hacker has taken the entire site offline.

According to the Daily Dot, a hacker calling himself ThreatKing launched a DDoS attack on New York Magazine’s site early Monday morning.

ThreatKing has been frequently posting from the Vikingdom2016 Twitter handle — the same Vikingdom that tangled low-level US government sites earlier this year.

Speaking to the Daily Dot via Skype, ThreatKing laid out a rather confusing explanation for the takedown.

“I went to new York 2 months ago. It was really bad,” he said. “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. [sic]”

He added that he wants “to see people die at New York. I’ve seen many pranks gone wrong at new york. That got me pissed. That’s why I chose New York. [sic]”

So it appears that the attack has nothing to do with Bill Cosby or the cover story. Instead it has everything to do with Vikingdom’s DDoS-for-hire tactics:

https://twitter.com/Vikingdom2016/status/624645077692981248

https://twitter.com/Vikingdom2016/status/624645555013189632

ThreatKing also provided a link to Vikingdom’s Soundcloud page, which features a call to the FBI and a recording titled “Warning Message to the United States.” In it, a robot voice said, “We are going to destroy state websites, city websites, agency’s websites, and court websites of the United States. You have took away our country and it’s time to get it back by destroying the United States.”

ThreatKing said he intends for NY Magazine to be down for 14 hours, but Vikingdom2016 account seems to have moved on, mentioning a “massive attack” directed at U.S. banking giant Sallie Mae.

https://twitter.com/Vikingdom2016/status/625668964631363584