Bright Data is an internet software firm originated from Israel which offers data collection services and advanced proxy solutions and networks. Recently, the said firm has received several allegations from a Swedish digital rights company called Qurium that Bright Data is behind a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack to help the Philippine government against a local human rights group called Karapatan.
Qurium stated in July that the executed DDoS attack against the Karapatan group and other local media focusing on the national government has been conducted by DOST (Department of Science and Technology) and the Philippine army themselves. Moreover, there were additional reports last week coming from Qurium that an upsurge of attacks against Karapatan has occurred again that has lasted for three weeks which seemingly aimed to disrupt the protest efforts in the fight against extra-judicial killings happening in the Philippines. These killings include the death of one of the members of the Karapatan organisation.
Analysis of the DDoS attack
The published analysis of Qurium mainly claims that the Israeli firm Bright Data is behind the said DDoS attacks to help the Philippines. They reported that the detected traffic from a DDoS operation has occurred from Russia and Ukraine using their local mobile carriers and detected activities from Digital Ocean and Choopa, both an American cloud infrastructure provider.
Since Bright Data firm offers proxies-as-a-service solutions, it strengthened Qurium’s investigations that they are the group behind the attacks, especially since their analysis suggests that many employed proxies and servers used are mainly offered by Bright Data.
Qurium’s allegations against Bright Data also add that they might have been employed by the Philippine government to provide quick-changing IP addresses that reach up to 100 IPs per hour to attack Karapatan.
Denial of the allegations
Nonetheless, all these allegations have been denied by Bright Data, stating from a response they sent from Qurium’s messages that the IP addresses attached do belong to Bright Data. Still, none of them was found from the requests that have been sent from the domain that’s been reported. Furthermore, they firmly adhere to their duty in being an ethical organisation and ensure the proper operation of services towards their peers, customers, and partners.
From an updated statement from Bright Data on August 26, they expressed that all of Qurium’s reports are false, unprofessional, and completely unethical, especially for choosing to ignore the facts and data they have provided. To summarise, Bright Data is disappointed with the derogatory reports pointed against them by Qurium without a solid basis. They demand them to detract the allegation reports and issue a public apology as soon as possible.
Existence of State-Sponsored Cyberattacks
The existence and practice of state-sponsored cyberattacks in any country can make it easier for its government to deny any participation when an attack happens due to them directly employing hackers through their own administration and military authorities while indirectly funding them. A government’s objective to this is to decrease the diplomatic consequences while implementing an attack against any opposing organisations.
