As worries mount about cyberthreats to democracy, Google on Tuesday announced the launch of a free set of tools to help election websites, human rights groups, and other parties defend their computer systems from attacks.
This comes a week after hackers took down one of the Netherlands’ leading election information sites during that country’s vote last week, according to Google, citing local media.
“Unfortunately, these types of attacks are becoming easier, cheaper, more better organized. With national elections approaching in France, we want to do our part to help,” said a blog post signed by staffers from Google France and from Jigsaw, the policy arm of Google’s (GOOGL, -2.05%) parent company, Alphabet.
The help Google is offering includes free protection from so-called “denial-of-service attacks,” or “DoS,” which flood sites with fake web traffic, causing them to buckle and go offline. Meanwhile, earlier such attacks have reportedly targeted investigative journalists and election monitors in places like Mexico, Ecuador, and Myanmar.
[http://fortune.com/2017/03/21/google-election-dos-attack-hackers/]
