Hacking attempts on Ecuador doubled after it revoked Assange asylum

Telecommunications Vice Minister of Ecuador revealed that hacking attempts on Ecuador doubled after it revoked WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s asylum. According to the Vice Minister, Ecuador ‘jumped from 51st place to 31st place worldwide in terms of the volume of cyber-attacks’ on 11 April as its institutions had received 40 million hacking attempts per day since Assange’s arrest. The websites for the country’s presidency, central bank and foreign ministry were the most affected by the hacking attempts. The attempts principally came from the US, Brazil, Holland, Germany, Romania, France, Austria, UK and Ecuador itself, but did not result in theft of any government data. According to Ecuador’s Interior minister, the government has identified two Russian hackers living in Ecuador, though they have not yet been arrested.