TorrentLeech is Down Due to DoS Attack
Written by Ernesto on March 11, 2008With over 150,000 users, TorrentLeech is without doubt one of the most popular private BitTorrent communities. Sadly, during the last few weeks the site suffered annoying setbacks in the form of hacking attempts, and most recently, a denial-of-service attack which has rendered the site unusable.
Getting access to private site TorrentLeech is difficult enough if you don’t have membership or don’t know a someone with invitations. Over the last few days, those difficulties in accessing the site have been extended to members too.
The current period of intermittent, but almost complete downtime has been going on for almost two days and is caused by a DoS attack, according to a message posted a few hours ago in the site’s news section.
“TorrentLeech is very slow and unresponsive during the last 30h, due to DoS attack to our webservers. Thank you for your patience, while we are trying to block this attack.”
At this point the source of the attacks is unclear, but they seem to be persistent and serious enough to completely degrade the usability of the site.
Things haven’t been going smoothly for the site recently. According to unconfirmed reports, the site was also the target of hacking attempts over the past few weeks.
Last week several TorrentLeech users received an email from a new tracker called ‘PowerScene’, asking them to join. Some users speculated that TorrentLeech may have been hacked and some email addresses leaked, or that someone from the inside leaked user information. However, none of these claims turned out to be true, as one of the admins said that TorrentLeech wasn’t hacked, but rather their sister site, PussyTorrents.
The admin wrote: “PowerScene, we believe, hacked our sister site PussyTorrents and obtained email addresses from the database there, this problem is being sorted out as we speak and admin/sysops are already working on upgrading security on both sites so no need for concern.”
To deal with the security vulnerabilities, members of the site were already prompted to update their passwords to more secure ones weeks ago, and since a few days ago they have also had to use a captcha to login.
TorrentLeech is coming back slowly, and both the tracker and the IRC channel seem to work fine. This isn’t the first time they have had to deal with a DoS attack, so they probably know how to deal with it quite effectively now.
Update: TorrentLeech moved to a new location and the site is back up.
Previously: A Sneak Peek at What.cd’s Project Gazelle
Next: ‘IFPI Advertising’ Boosts Visitors To Blocked File-Sharing Site
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Maybe it’s just a anti-piracy company takeing advantage of the current situation, thus choosing a tactical attack vector/moment.
yeah, either the anti-piracy gangsters or some pissed of “hax0r” Neo-Wannabe whos throwing a tantrum for being banned. ^_^
This is pretty much gay..
I hope they recover soon.
Torrentleech is losing his Pride.
Glad bless TL.
Wow.. your site sucks so bad that you have to hack other websites to get members.. like thats a good idea..
grow up little kids.
Sons of bitches, them PowerScene.
Can’t beat ‘em? DoS ‘em.
Stupid wannabes.
150,000 members?!
Whoa .. maybe I shouldn’t have turned down that invite.
Oh well.
This is PowerScene, we hacked that website because we want more members for our site, if you dont join us we will DoS attack you.
I am also looking for gay men to have orgies with, if you dont have gay sex with me I will DoS attack you aswell.
mmmmmm pussytorrents!
Hope they sort it out soon even though I ain’t a member, Know one likes a torrent sight to go down (apart from a rival sight or the RIAA etc bastards)
PowerScene had nothing to do with the Ddos attacks, that are still continuing.
Check your sources you silly writers…check them before you post. Ask TL admins first, they will confirm that PowerScene arent the attackers.
I’ve found out that the reason TL hate PowerScene is because PowerScene is made up of ex TorrentLeech siteops and uploaders…
Grudge time.
CHECK YOUR SOURCES TORRENTFREAK
CHECK YOUR SOURCES TORRENTFREAK
CHECK YOUR SOURCES TORRENTFREAK
CHECK YOUR SOURCES TORRENTFREAK
CHECK YOUR SOURCES TORRENTFREAK
http://www.hackerscenter.com/index.php?/HSC-Guides/Ethical-Hacker/DoS.html
an article about the different forms of DoS
Hell, it’s not like Ellinas can’t afford a few new servers what with the amount he makes from those “VIP” idiots. S’probably merc taking another pot-shot at him.
LMAO bashing PowerScene XD
You can’t trust a bias source when there’s a well known grudge :P
Boo TorrentFreak ^^
Thanks for the update on TL though :)
Oh sure blame PsC, as long as it’s not TorrentLeech’s fault…
no offence to powerscene but from my experience I know they aren’t capable of this and I hope torrentleech gets back up soon.
noob powerscene didnt hack anything lol some people left tl and started that site so tl started rumors
Check your sources TF, you can’t just listen to the “victim” without proof :P
As a TL member i am curious what PowerScene is all about i’ve never even heard of them, anyone know where i can find out if they really are ex TL members?
Tracker doesn’t seem to be up for me :(
Could be down to the fact I screwed up my static ip though.
powerscene is a decent site, I joined there, got alot of seeders for just starting out. pretty nice size irc channel and staff are pretty cool, TL is kind of like a prison camp community, be kicked from their channel or banned on site pretty easily, probably why some of their staff decided to start something new
torrentleech deserve to be hacked or ddos’d if that is exactly what it is they’re doing….
they get ten’s of thousands of £££’s a month, and spend almost 10% on it, and keep the rest for the siteops…none go any of the uppers.
they both suck imo. s*t ftw
sct are also money whores
Why isn’t there a big organization fighting DDoS ? Why aren’t ISPs AND users sued all the time by DDoS?
FUCK!
DDoS is the worst shit ever. Many ISPs should be more worried about this then file sharing…
Sounds like the ancient battle of David Versus Goliath.
Everyone knows how that battle ended, yet it seems unclear who david is.
David is not Powerscene, it is something smaller, your all day user for example, yet sometimes there is more to a small user than meets the eye.
Bzt there is not just one David, there is a whole army of Davids.
Torrentleech seems to have made a few critical mistakes.
Pissing off people here and there, to their left and right, on top and bottom.
I guess the list of enemies is like endless.
Starting with the ” Scene ” and ending with the unfairly and harshly treated user.
In the middle are somewhere the ” Law dogs “.
But yes you are right, it has to be Powerscene, considering the enormous amount of irefutable evidence ( which mainly consists of the big egos and small -censored- of the TL staff ).
It is quite funny how such a big tracker seems to be so afraid and hateful towards such a, comparably, small tracker.
It is somewhat disgusting that everyone claims to have the higher goal of ” Sharing “, yet it seems the only thing some want to do is to stroke their egos and make profit.
Nontheless I hope that Torrentleech will be back up soonish, and that those silly accusations will stop.
Competition is there to have fun and to improve the services for the ” customers “.
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