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Columbia looks at options after Christmas Eve website attack

computer crime cyberCOLUMBIA (AP) – Columbia is looking to bolster its cybersecurity after a Christmas Eve attack shut down its website for nearly three days.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that the city website, gocolumbiamo.com, experienced a distributed denial of service attack beginning around 11 p.m. Dec. 24. The website was flooded with requests from multiple computers, and remained offline until around noon Dec. 27.

Deputy City Manager Tony St. Romaine says it’s not possible to prevent such an attack from happening, but there are ways to mitigate it, at a price.

St. Romaine says content delivery networks are among the options the city is considering.

St. Romaine has said an online post said the hacker group Anonymous was taking credit for the attack.

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