Queen’s University cyber security expert David Skillicorn is available to talk about today’s report that found more than 10,000 computers were involved in the attack that caused on-line voting chaos at the NDP leadership convention.

According to Scytl Canada, the company hired by the NDP to run the vote, a large-scale “distributed denial of service” targeted the electronic voting system.

“It was a very serious attack but it was a very easy one to do. It was almost certainly a botnet attack, which is when somebody infiltrates and compromises a large number of PC computers so they can all do the same thing – in this case, try to access the NDP voting site and block access to it,” said Dr. Skillicorn, a professor in the School of Computing.

To arrange an interview, please contact communication officers Michael Onesi (office: 613.533.6000 ext. 77513,michael.onesi@queensu.ca) or Anne Craig (office: 613-533-2877, Anne.Craig@queensu.ca) at Queen’s University News and Media Services Department in Kingston, Ont., Canada.

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