Julien Assange’s arrest was not without consequences: Ecuador and the United Kingdom suffered a wave of cyber attacks in the days following his extradition. Proof that the founder of WikiLeaks has some influence, even indirect, with hackers.

After 2487 days, nearly 8 years, locked up in the Ecuadorian Embassy of the United Kingdom, Julien Assange was arrested by British police on Thursday, April 11, 2019. By ending its status as a political refugee, due to non-compliance with international conventions and the cohabitation protocol established between the two parties, Ecuador turned its back on the founder of WikiLeaks.

This non-governmental organization launched in 2006 by the Australian cyber-militant has built a reputation by publishing a series of confidential documents, often compromising for the people and structures concerned. In 2010, this whistleblower received support from Anonymous, a hacker group famous for its DDoS attacks. However, the latter decided to retract a few years later.

Assange, notoriety that goes beyond borders

To a lesser extent, the British administration has suffered the wrath of hackers. For example, a group of attackers nicknamed “Philippine Cyber Eagles” published a 44 MB file containing documents (spreadsheets, press releases) allegedly stolen from police stations in the country. Another anonymous collective reportedly launched a DDoS attack on the Police.UK website.

Other squadrons have targeted the city councils of Barnsley (South Yorkshire) and Bedale (north of Leeds), without any data stolen, according to a spokesman quoted by the BBC. While these operations do not have severe consequences for the targets targeted, they represent a form of support for Julien Assange, whose notoriety throughout the world is capable, in spite of himself, of leading to a series of cyber attacks.

More than 40 million cyber attacks against Ecuador

Although he has been on the back burner since obtaining political asylum, Julien Assange remains an essential figure in the community. The evidence is the wave of cyber attacks against the United Kingdom and Ecuador, observed a few days after the arrest of the 40-year-old, as reported by CyberScoop. Attempts were made in particular to target Quito and its administrations.

According to the Ecuadorian Deputy Minister of Information and Communication Technology, the country has been hit more than 40 million times since Mr. Assange’s capture. The pirates focused their efforts on official structures: from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the central bank and government agencies, all victims of so-called volumetric attacks (a type of DDoS attack).