Cyber Incident Victim: Trump Tower
Date:
Dec 2015
Location:
United States of America
Summary
Anonymous targeted the Trump Tower website with a DDoS attack under the #OpTrump campaign, motivated by opposition to proposed policies restricting Muslim immigration. The group issued prior warnings via a YouTube video and social media, framing the action as a stance against perceived racism and alignment with ISIS recruitment dynamics. Attackers claimed success in temporarily disrupting the site, though visitors likely encountered a cached backup page served by Cloudflare during the outage. The incident involved coordinated social media activity promoting the operation, including manipulated imagery associating the target with Nazi symbolism, though no further actions were confirmed at the time. The affected organization did not publicly respond to the incident.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 1 motive | 1 technique |
| Threat Actor | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 actor | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
The incident involving the Trump Tower New York website began on or before December 9, 2015, when the hacktivist collective Anonymous posted a YouTube video featuring an individual in a Guy Fawkes mask using a voice scrambler to condemn Donald Trump's proposed policy banning Muslim immigration to the United States. The video explicitly warned Trump that the policy would benefit ISIS by alienating Muslims and increasing their recruitment potential. By December 9, Anonymous members had initiated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against trumptowerny.com, as evidenced by a Twitter post from user @FibsFreitag showing an attack in progress with the message "trumptowerny.com nearly down. we need more laz0rs! #DDoS #OpTrump #OpFire." The operation was framed as a protest against racism and hatred, with the group coordinating under the hashtag #OpTrump.
By December 11, 2015, Anonymous claimed via a separate Twitter account to have successfully taken down the Trump Tower website, stating, "Trump Towers NY site taken down as statement against racism and hatred." However, visitors to the site likely saw only a cached backup page served by Cloudflare’s offline protection service, masking the full impact of the disruption. The Trump campaign did not publicly acknowledge the attack or respond to media requests for comment. Anonymous did not confirm plans for additional actions beyond the initial DDoS campaign, though social media posts associated with #OpTrump continued to circulate, including manipulated imagery depicting Trump alongside Nazi symbolism. The attack remained confined to the website’s availability, with no evidence of data breaches, defacement, or physical disruptions to Trump Tower operations.