A cyberattack on Runrunes’ server caused its website to go down (March 2018)
Starting on Saturday, March 3, 2018, the Venezuelan investigative journalism website Runrunes (Runrun.es) reported that its server was under a cyberattack that caused its website to go down. On March 5, via its Twitter account, the outlet announced that its servers had been under attack since Saturday and that, despite the censorship, it would continue to report via Twitter and Facebook. The case was documented by the NGO Espacio Público (article published on March 6, 2018). This incident is distinct from the denial-of-service attacks that Runrunes suffered later in May 2019 and December 2021.
Impact details
Runrunes reported an attack on its server beginning on March 3, 2018, which caused its website to go down, although the outlet continued to post on social media. No data breach was reported.
Classification & severity
- Category
- Availability
- Subtype
- website outage or take down
- Confidence
- High
Espacio Público reports an attack on the Runrunes server that has caused the website to go offline; the technical details have not been made public.
Severity assessment
Medium- Functional impact
- Denial (non-critical)
- Information impact
- None
- Affected scope
- Organization-wide
- Critical service
- None
- Public confidence
- Limited
- Recoverability
- Regular
Incident involving media/civil society website availability or content integrity; no confirmed data exposure or critical service interruption.
Timeline
The Runrunes server begins to fall victim to a cyberattack that causes its website to go down.
Runrunes announced on Twitter that its servers have been under attack since Saturday and that it will continue to provide updates on social media (Twitter and Facebook).
Espacio Público publishes a report documenting the cyberattack on the Runrunes website.