Parler accused Amazon of giving hackers a green light to target the social media platform’s data centers.
In the fallout of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, Amazon Web Services (AWS) took Parler offline alongside other tech companies citing concerns about harmful speech online. Parler sued Amazon and said in a court filing that Amazon deliberately left open Amazon Route 53, a Domain Name System web service, that invited the hackers.
“In other words, AWS essentially illuminated a large neon arrow directing hackers to Parler’s backup datacenters,” Parler said in a court filing on Monday. “And the hackers got the message, launching an extremely large attack — one 250 times larger and 12-24 times longer than the average [Distributed Denial-of-Service] attack.”
Parler’s court filing said AWS later eliminated the Route 53 link, but the damage was done and the “AWS-facilitated attack” made clear to others that if they hosted Parler they would experience hacks, too.
“AWS didn’t just put Parler up a creek without a paddle — it banished it up the Columbia River without a boat and made sure no other boats would be willing to come to the rescue,” Parler said in the filing.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Since being taken offline earlier this month, Parler resurfaced this week. The platform is not up-and-running, however, Parler.com displays a message about technical difficulties and includes statements from the company’s staffers.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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