Russian missile strikes take out popular piracy websites
4 hours ago
- Russian missile strikes targeted Ukrainian data centers, causing downtime for popular piracy websites 1337x and NordicQuality.
- 1337x experienced a 'Direct Destruction of Server' attack, with physical explosions taking machines offline.
- These sites rely on content delivery networks like Cloudflare, making it difficult to identify the hosting data center.
- Multiple Ukrainian data center firms and telecoms were hit, including Virtual Systems, MiroHost, CosmoNova, DataGroup, CityHost, and KyivStar.
- Despite 19 years of survival and numerous shutdown attempts, 1337x remains the second most-visited pirate tracker with 40-50 million monthly visits.
- Eastern Europe is a popular hosting region for piracy sites due to lax copyright laws, but Ukraine is shifting to align with EU standards.