Pro Publica's Website Is Apparently "Under Attack"

On Tuesday afternoon, self-described nonprofit independent newsroom Pro Publica was offline, and the organization said that this was because the website was under attack. Trying to visit the site led to error messages. Google Chrome said that the website was not available because the connection was refused. The organization tweeted, "Heads up: Our web servers are currently under attack and our website is down; we're working on a fix now. Thanks for your patience."

Pro Publica covers a range of news, and often collaborates with other organizations on large-scale stories. In fact, a story on deaths in a nursing home after Hurricane Katrina which was published in the New York Times Magazine was written by a Pro Publica reporter, and it received a Pulitzer Prize in 2010. A quick glance at Pro Publica's Facebook page shows that recent stories covered topics which ranged from the DEA and narco-terrorism, to police records in Chicago, to how "gun control ignores black lives."

It's not yet clear who executed the DDoS attack on the news organization, or why the heck they targeted this outlet of all options, but Pro Publica tweeted to ask anyone who can provide help identifying the source of the attack to email getinvolved@propublica.org.