How cyberattackers used a US company in efforts to crash media sites

Members of the Somali Journalists Syndicate and local journalists protest the persecution of secretary general Abdalle Ahmed Mumin, third from right, in a December 2022 photo. This year, the SJS website was the target of cyberattacks. (Photo courtesy SJS)

The cyberattack against the Somali Journalists Syndicate could not have come at a worse time. A distributed denial-of-service attack, known as DDoS, flooded the local press freedom group’s website with traffic, knocking it offline in early August. Days later, authorities arrested SJS staff member and Kaab TV editor Mohamed Ibrahim Osman Bulbul.

“It was a very traumatic week. Sleepless. Very stressful. We could not publish our statement, the first statement of Mohamed’s detention,” SJS secretary general Abdalle Ahmed Mumin told CPJ’s Jonathan Rozen.

Qurium, a non-profit based in Sweden, began hosting and defending the SJS website. When the next DDoS attack came a week later, Qurium’s analysis found that a U.S. company, RayoByte, had provided services used by the attackers. Quirium also found that tools provided by RayoByte, a Nebraska-headquartered company owned by Sprious group, had been used in several other attacks on media outlets from around the world, including Kosovo, Nigeria, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, and Turkmenistan. (Sprious declined CPJ’s requests for an interview but said in emailed statements that it was “deeply concerned” about reports that its services were “allegedly” used in DDoS attacks.)

Read Rozen’s report on the mechanics of these online censorship efforts and what they mean for press freedom.


Nigerian journalist Damilola Ayeni freed in Benin

Nigerian journalist Damilola Ayeni
Nigerian journalist Damilola Ayeni was arrested by Benin police on August 31, 2023. (Photo courtesy Fisayo Soyombo)

The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomed the September 8 decision by Beninese authorities to release without charge Nigerian environmental journalist
Damilola Ayeni after Benin police detained
him
incommunicado for nine days on “suspicion of participation in terrorist
activities.” 
Ayeni, the editor of Nigeria’s Foundation for Investigative Journalism, was arrested on August 31 while on the second leg of a cross-border environmental investigation in the north of Benin.
CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal said the organization is relieved by the release of Ayeni, “who was falsely accused of being a jihadist” by
police apparently intent on soliciting a bribe for his freedom. 
“We hope that Ayeni will be allowed
to continue his important reporting without further harassment and that authorities will take firm action against any police officer who has brought Benin into disrepute and wasted resources that should be used to counter real extremism, not journalism.”


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Journalists Attacked

Samuel Wazizi

KILLED



Cameroonian news anchor and camera operator Samuel Wazizi died in government custody on August 17, 2019.

Police officers arrested him on August 2, saying they were looking for Wazizi to “get a certain information for their boss, the commissioner.”

On August 7, he was transferred to military custody and disappeared. In June 2020, military authorities disclosed that Wazizi had died of “severe sepsis” 10 days after that transfer.

CPJ has repeatedly called for authorities to allow an independent probe into Wazizi’s death.

In at least 8 out of 10 cases, the murderers of journalists go free. CPJ is waging a global campaign against impunity.

The Committee to Protect Journalists promotes press freedom worldwide.

We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.

journalists killed in 2023 (motive confirmed)
imprisoned in 2022
missing globally