Cyber Incident Victim: New York Magazine
Date:
Jul 2015
Location:
United States of America
Summary
New York Magazine's website was disrupted by a cyberattack attributed to the group VikingDom2016, operating under the alias ThreatKing, shortly after publishing an exposé featuring accounts from 35 women accusing Bill Cosby of sexual assault. The attackers claimed motivations included personal knowledge of one accuser and generalized grievances against New York City, while boasting about the disruption's visibility. The incident involved a denial-of-service attack that overwhelmed servers, causing approximately 12 hours of downtime and preventing staff from accessing corporate email systems. During the outage, the magazine republished the featured content on Tumblr and Instagram to maintain accessibility, describing the situation externally as technical difficulties without explicitly confirming the breach.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 1 motive | 1 technique |
| Threat Actors | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 2 actors | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On July 26, 2015, New York magazine published an investigative piece featuring accounts from 35 women alleging sexual assault by Bill Cosby, accompanied by a cover portrait of the accusers. The article rapidly drew significant traffic after its online release at 9 p.m. ET on July 27. Early the following morning (July 28), the magazine’s website, nymag.com, became inaccessible due to a cyberattack. A group identifying as VikingDom2016 claimed responsibility for the outage via Twitter communications with a representative using the alias ThreatKing. The hackers provided multiple motivations, including a statement implying personal familiarity with one of the accusers ("We know one of them females in the cover"), criticism of New York City’s social environment, and a declaration that the attack marked "just the start." ThreatKing characterized the incident as a denial-of-service attack, though New York magazine’s initial public statement cited only "technical difficulties" without confirming the attack vector. Internal sources at the magazine acknowledged suspicions of a hack but were still investigating the specific method during the outage.
The attack disrupted all access to nymag.com for approximately 12 hours and concurrently disabled corporate email systems for staff. Magazine personnel worked to restore services while republishing the Cosby exposé and accompanying victim portraits on Tumblr to maintain public access; video content from the feature was also shared via Instagram. The disruption occurred during a period of heightened visibility for the story, which had involved six months of investigative work. VikingDom2016’s social media activity framed the attack as intentionally disruptive ("we ruined New York big night") but provided no corroborated technical details beyond their unverified claims. No data breach or content alteration occurred. Service was fully restored by the afternoon of July 28, with no additional statements from the magazine regarding attribution or security changes. The incident highlighted operational vulnerabilities during high-profile publications but did not suppress the story’s distribution.