"From USA with love": The Jester goes after Russia as payback

The Jester. The computer vigilante who has claimed a number of DDoS attacks from the past 5 years like those on the Westboro Baptist Church, Wikileaks and dozens of Islamist websites, is back to take down US enemies.

Friday night, the “Batman of the internet,” as he”s called by the FBI, went after the website of Russian Foreign Affairs as payback for attacks on US officials, DNC, voting systems and the Dyn DNS shutdown, which he believes Russia is responsible for, the hacker said in an exclusive interview with CNNMoney. He says he is a former US soldier and his actions are carried out of patriotism.

“Comrades! We interrupt regular scheduled Russian Foreign Affairs Website programming to bring you the following important message. Knock it off,” he wrote. “You may be able to push around nations around you, but this is America. Nobody is impressed. Let’s get real, I know it’s you, even if by-proxy, and you know it’s you. Now, get to your room. Before I lose my temper.”

Although several media outlets picked up the news and announced the Jester had taken down the Russian Foreign Affairs website, Ars Technica discovered it was a trick. He took advantage of a cross-site scripting vulnerability in the Russian website and displayed a message that it was hacked.

The Foreign Ministry site was “a former site which has not been used for a long time,” said Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

When asked about the results of the investigation by their security specialists, she said that “if they find out it was a cyberattack from America, it means that either a cyber-machine of destruction Biden and McFaul have spoken about is already at work or that the evil provocative election campaign in the United States has driven people to a state where they are ready to wreak havoc.”