"Chetverta Vlada" website under attack following an investigation into a deputy's income

The website of the investigative journalism agency "Chetverta Vlada" suffered an intense DDoS attack following the release of an article about the Rivne City Council deputy Svyatoslav Stelmashchuk, "Chetverta Vlada" reports.

The attack happened on March 22 (immediately after the article was published) and lasted for 30 minutes. The article was about the deputy's luxurious lifestyle which his official income hardly covers.

After this article was released, the "Chetverta Vlada" website suffered a cyber attack. Screenshot by the IMI

During the attack, following the link 4vlada.com would yield users a server error message.

According to the administrator, Natalya Onishchenko, the attack on the website was very intense.

"At its peak, the main page was receiving 14,000 requests per second from various IP addresses. The server could not withstand such a load, so the website was temporarily suspended," the administrator explains.

The "Chetverta Vlada" website has already been subjected to DDoS attacks in 2021, after reporting on the wedding of the "Rivne Razom" deputy Svyatoslav Stelmashchuk and his alleged involvement in embezzlement.

The website was also attacked in the fall of 2020, after an investigation into Victor Shakirzyan, a mayoral candidate from the party "Rivne Razom". On October 22 and 28, 2020, the website received many automated requests from the same IP address.