VikingDom2016
Attribution profile
- Type
- Sensationalist
- Location
- United States of America
- Known incidents
- 1 incident
- Sources
- 1 source
- First seen
- 2015-07-28
- Last seen
- 2015-07-28
- Updated
- 2026-10-12 18:25
- Aliases
- 2 aliases
STIX characteristics
Threat actor characteristics are available to members.
Profile narrative
VikingDom2016, also known by the alias ThreatKing, is a threat actor linked to the United States. The actor gained public attention for a denial‑of‑service attack that took down the New York Magazine website on 28 July 2015, shortly after the magazine published an exposé on Bill Cosby. The attack overwhelmed the site’s servers, causing roughly twelve hours of downtime and preventing staff from accessing corporate email; the magazine restored access and republished the content on Tumblr and Instagram while describing the outage as technical difficulties. VikingDom2016 claimed responsibility via Twitter, stating that the motive included knowing one of the women featured on the cover, expressing grievances against New York City, and seeking maximum visibility for the disruption. No malware families, initial‑access vectors, or specific tooling are described in the source material, and no public attribution to a state sponsor or criminal consortium has been made. The New York Magazine incident remains the only publicly reported operation associated with this actor.
Incidents
Attributed incidents are available to members.
1 incidentSources
Sources available to members: 1 source.