EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Business Wire, the press release distribution firm owned by Berkshire Hathaway, has been under sustained Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack since January 31. An interesting development, given the US stock market’s volatility this week.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the cyberattack does not appear to have compromised client information. However, Business Wire’s site is operating very sluggishly under the weight of the strike. And, this kind of activity can scare away business.

“Executives at New York-based communications firm Peaks Strategies said they tried to send a news release for a client Monday morning but were unable to do so because of the attack. They ultimately issued the announcement through a rival service,” reports The Wall Street Journal.

Hackers use DDoS attacks to overwhelm websites with traffic, to drain resources necessary to support actual site visitors.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal.