UK police foil attack on royal website

Now it can be told: British police managed to prevent a 16-year-old from "disrupting" the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton last April 29.

 

Police detained the 16-year-old last Oct. 10 for a "suspected attempt" to encourage a distributed denial-of-services attack on the official wedding website.

 

Computer security firm Sophos said the UK police's cybercrime unit chief, Det. Supt. Charlie McMurdie, mentioned the incident during an address to attendees of the Royal United Services Institute, a defense think tank.

 

Sophos cited an Associated Press report that said McMurdie noted the teenager is out on bail and has not yet been charged.

 

"The official royal wedding website said that, at its peak, it was handling more than 2,000 requests per second," Sophos added.

 

It noted the popularity of the event crashed the BBC’s site, which went down for 17 minutes of prime nuptial time.

 

The Guardian at the time noted that Twitter feeds from users complained of being unable to watch live streaming from Westminster Abbey.

 

McMurdie told the conference attendees that action was taken to safeguard the royal wedding’s official site, which received 15 million hits on the wedding date. — TJD, GMA News