WASHINGTON (CNN) – RickPerry.org, the official re-election Web site of Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry was hacked Tuesday during a live Web broadcast, his campaign claimed. The site went down for approximately 10 minutes at 11:20 a.m. central time.
"Today's 'Talkin' Texas' webcast by Gov. Perry was deliberately interrupted by a denial-of-service attack, preventing countless users from logging in to view the Governor's remarks," Rick Perry Spokesman Mark Miner said in a statement e-mailed to reporters. "This planned and coordinated attack was political sabotage, and we are working to identify those responsible for this illegal activity."
Pressed on whether or not he thought the campaign of Perry's Republican primary opponent Kay Bailey Hutchison was behind the "sabotage," Miner responded: "I hope not. I hope they would not be that stupid."
The Hutchison campaign denied being behind the attack and aides said that they are "skeptical" Perry's site was even hacked.
In a statement provided to CNN, Hutchison spokeswoman Jennifer Baker wrote, "What an embarrassing campaign launch. I'm sure the governor is hacked, but we are skeptical their site was. After all, Rick Perry isn't exactly a stranger when it comes to arrogantly blaming others for his mistakes."
Jim Dempsey - the vice president for public policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a non-partisan Internet policy organization - said he did not believe a political opponent would have engineered the attack.
"That would be political suicide," he said. "That is Watergate of the 21st century. It is not as easy to cover your tracks in cyberspace."
Anthony Kukla, the president of Redglue, Inc., the company that manages the servers and network for Perry's campaign site, said such attacks "are usually 100 percent intentional and 100 percent targeted."
Although he said such attacks are becoming increasingly common, when pressed on who might have been behind the "sabotage," Kukla replied, "It could be anybody. Who knows? Hackers can be some 13-year-old kid."
From CNN Politics
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How does a 10 minute web server problem become an 'attack' It's not like websites don't ever have problems.
Grant, T Roosevelt, and Eisenhower were Republicans, and, both Johnsons were Democrats, just to be accurate.
Yeah right and she hacked it for what reason?? Just a repo looking to blame someone.
So was opening your yap, Perry, and letting the word "secession" squirm out.
Perry sucks as governor. I know. I work for him!
He's a wanna be, no brains, no luster, just nice hair.
Buh, bye, Perry. You are done and we don't need your bad policies and secessionist ideals in Texas. We gave the world Dubya and are still embarrassed. Sorry, ya'll. Won't happen again. Texas will be a Blue state again.
Ann Richards, we sure do miss you.
I bet for McCain
You gonna cry Ricky?
I betcha the culprit was U.S. Grant. He's heard your threat of seceding from the Union.
Probably Perry forgot his login and password and makes it into a big deal. Moron
Perry is so dumb, I'm surprised he knows how to use teh internets. Teabaggers Untie!
How could something be HACKED that most likely was not put together RIGHT in the first place.... REPUBLI-CAN'Ts ..... YOU LIE!!! Your site was not hacked or sabatoged!!!
I say we send all of these knuckle dragging, halfwits to Texas put up a fence and let them be their own country! They can name it The Facist Republic of Moronica! I think it's a good idea, let them go, I'm all for it! The sooner we rid this country of these parasites the better!!!
THEY are both FIRST class clowns!!
Most surely, the Republican Governor from Texas doesn't think his republican opponent is capable of this. They are all so above-board. I thought only the Democrats were even capable of thinking such things!!!! Go figure!