RishikaXcult.com Cyber-Bombed by Vicious DDos Assault — Was this Another Attempt to Hide the Gurus’ Dark Secrets?
Bad things come in threes, according to the old saying. Starting in the summer of 2013, three bad things happened to me that nearly derailed my ability to share the truth about my ex-fake-gurus’ corruption. In a three-part series, I reveal how my ex-cult tried to obliterate the truth from the planet. Much to will be their dismay, my blog, book trailer, and book are alive and well. In fact, the updated version of my book, Sex, Lies, and Two Hindu Gurus, is now ready on Amazon — with five secret-spilling new chapters.
Early on the morning of July 25, 2013, I received a phone call from the company that hosted my RishikaXcult blog, where I wrote about my life in and out of the JKP cult.
The technical support person said my account had been deactivated due to a DDoS (pronounced “dee-doss”) attack overnight. The attack directed at (only) my blog was so intense it had taken down their entire operation.
DDoS stands for “denial of service.” A DDoS attack is an attempt by anonymous hackers to bring down websites by sending traffic from multiple sources all at one time and, thereby, overwhelm the hosting service. It’s used by the most despicable cyber-criminals to wreck havoc on companies and individuals. Of course, it’s illegal and punishable by law. The problem is that it’s difficult to find the source of the attack.
Hit With the Same Force that Brought Down WikiLeaks.com
I learned the attack on my account was especially vicious—it was hit at the rate of 10 gigabits per second. That was the same level of attack used by cybercriminals to bring down WikiLeaks.com in 2012.
Experts say that an attack of even one gigabit per second is enough to crash large websites. Launching such an intense attack on my little blog was extreme overkill. Kind of like a murderer who keeps stabbing their victim, even though the person is already dead.
What’s more, it is not a small thing to accomplish. It would have taken considerable resources — including a lot of money.
A technical person I know said, “Whoever did this was serious about bringing down your blog.”
Clearly they were.
But who would level such an attack on my tiny little blog? Who would have anything to gain from such an expensive attack?
My tech guy, who is a high-level software engineer, did some research, including searching the logs of the network/server requests. But there was no way to find a source, because the attack came from multiple anonymous computers located around the world.
While I have no proof, I think it’s pretty obvious who was behind the attack — the subject of my blog and book, my ex-fake-gurus and their cult.
Bringing RishikaXcult.com Back to Life
Because I work for a living (unlike my ex-fake-gurus), I don’t have a lot of free time to deal with such a devastating crisis. After all, it took considerable effort to launch and maintain my blog in the first place. It took even longer to write my book, during which time I had to endure horrible nightmares while writing about my horrific experiences and the secrets I learned.
Now I felt like I had to start over from scratch to re-launch my blog. And I didn’t even have a hosting company any longer. I was pretty depressed. And I was busy earning a living, like most people who work for a living.
I did, however, receive a great deal of support from people who have supported my efforts behind the scene to expose the cult and to warn people about my ex-gurus and their dark secrets.
One of my supporters said: “I’d like to see the blog live again, because reading it helped me and my family steer clear of the cult.”
In fact, many people told me they had learned the truth about Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat thanks to RishikaXcult.com. Several of my long-time supporters had technical careers, and advised me to re-launch my blog on Google’s blog platform, called Blogger.
It was a step down in terms of control and functionality — and took me time to gather the energy to do it. But I finally got RishikaXcult.com back up in 2014.
However, I didn’t spend any time finessing it or adding new content, because I was busy with other tasks — liking working with the India publisher, HarperCollins, who had purchased my book for the Indian subcontinent, and updating my book with five new chapters describing key events that have occurred since I first published my book in 2012.
Now that the new version of my book is published on Amazon in a Kindle ebook and a soft-cover book, I’ll find some free time to work once again on RishikaXcult.com — so the blog can continue its job of warning people about the dirty dealings at JKP.
Note: Interestingly, just one month prior to the DDoS attack on my blog, I had experienced another takedown — my book trailer was removed from YouTube after some mystery person complained. Read all about this attempt to bury my book in Part 2 of this three-part series.
