Wikipedia knocked offline in Europe after ‘malicious attack’

A large scale “malicious attack” has knocked out access to Wikipedia across parts of Europe and the Middle East, according to multiple reports and the Wikimedia Foundation. 

According to Wikimedia, the attacks began Friday and have continued through the weekend. In a statement, the foundation condemned the attack and said it was carried out by “‘bad faith’ actors.” 

We condemn these sorts of attacks. They’re not just about taking Wikipedia offline. Takedown attacks threaten everyone’s fundamental rights to freely access and share information. We in the Wikimedia movement and Foundation are committed to protecting these rights for everyone.

Late Friday, Wikimedia’s German account confirmed the site was experiencing a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack affecting accessibility in that country.

As of Sunday morning in the U.S., the attack was still affecting parts of Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Poland, and Israel, according to DownDetector.

Wikipedia is often on the front lines of web censorship. In May, all language versions of the site were blocked in China, and in 2017 the site was blocked in Turkey.

If all else fails, though, we at least know there’s a copy of one version of the website somewhere on the moon.

[via Gizmodo]