Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts and her family were woken by armed police in the middle of the night after a hacker managed to swatt the victim, followed by a coordinated online campaign that saw her website “DDoS-ed” last week and at least 11 user accounts compromised.
“It is worth noting that we do not believe these addresses were obtained directly from any Mumsnet, as we do not collect addresses,” Roberts explained. “The police are investigating both cases.”
Although the Twitter account has now been taken down, the person behind it is suspected of coordinating a DDoS attack against the parenting website, which attracts 14 million visitors each month.
The person behind it is said to have posted provocative statements including “RIP Mumsnet” and “Our DDoS attacks are keeping you offline” on Twitter.
Although the website was down for less than a day about a week ago, it may be linked to an attempt to hack the accounts of many users and administrators of the website.
It is believed that the attacker “phished” more than one account by tricking users into entering their credentials on a fake log-in page. Some accounts have already been compromised, with one user reporting that posts were made that were not hers.
Finally, Mumsnet advises users to check if the HTTPS log-in URL is correct or to use one of the social networks (Facebook / Google) as a login option.
