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Press Release

BREAKING NEWS: Hackers attack global International Women's Day website in attempt to foil activity

LONDON March 7, 2011: As midnight struck in the Asia Pacific region, perpetrators targeted the global internationalwomensday.com website in a massive attack.

As the Centenary of International Women's Day (IWD) struck in the Asia Pacific region, perpetrators commenced attacking the internationalwomensday.com website in an explicit attempt to prevent users from accessing the global hub for International Women's Day.

Women's groups, charities, governments, corporations, schools, universities, the media and women around the world have all geared up for the biggest International Women's Day ever. Almost 2,000 events are occurring around the world with many further events happening online.

Performer and social activist, Annie Lennox, who leads the International Women's Day mass march across London's Millennium Bridge for charity 'Women for Women' said that the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day is "a moment in time". The day, marked by millions around the world, celebrates the economic, political, and social achievements of women past, present, and future.

Founder of the internationalwomensday.com website, women's campaigner and Australian entrepreneur Glenda Stone, said "We are monitoring the attack but women's spirits will not be dampened by the malicious attempts of those who do not support International Women's Day. Activity around the world will continue to mark the day's significance as millions of women rise to campaign for equality and celebrate achievement." The IWD website was brought down for approximately one hour while the attack was countered.

Almost 2,000 events have been posted on the website by women and organisations around the world. Thousands of websites link to the http://www.internationalwomensday.com website. International Women's Day is most actively celebrated in the United Kingdom, Canada, United States, Australia and India although activity occurs in almost all countries and is increasing.

Last month on February 28, President Obama officially proclaimed the whole month of March as Women's History Month in the United States.

Further notes:

1. The International Women's Day website, set to see well over 100,000 visitors on 8 March alone, has recently been seeing around 25,000 users per day.
2. The attack on the International Women's Day website was a Denial of service (DoS) attack. The website was the target of a massive 5 gigabytes per second (Gbps) denial of service attack. These type of attacks have brought many leading websites around the world to their knees. They occur when there is an explicit attempt by attackers to prevent legitimate users of a service from using the service.
3. The http://www.internationalwomensday.com website was attacked just after 00.01 on 8 March Asia Pacific time. Although the website was returned to use in just over one hour, the attack continued causing the issue to be continuously countered. The situation is being monitored closely.

About the www.internationalwomensday.com website

• The http://www.internationalwomensday.com website is a global hub for sharing International Women's Day news, events and resource.
• The http://www.internationalwomensday.com website receives significant traffic in the lead up to and post International Women's Day (8 March) with well over 100,000 unique visitors using the website on International Women's Day alone. Over 1,500 websites link to the IWD website.
• The Top 30 countries that generate traffic to the http://www.internationalwomensday.com website are (in order) United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, France, Philippines, Singapore, Netherlands, Germany, Malaysia, Pakistan, Mexico, Spain, Kenya, Belgium, New Zealand, Hong Kong, South Africa, Switzerland, China, Austria, Israel, Romania, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nigeria.
• 2011 traffic is expected to be well in excess of previous traffic levels due to the notable increased level of activity due to 2011 being the Centenary Year and in light of increased global awareness of the importance of the day.

Media inquiries to:
Glenda Stone
Email: glenda @ internationalwomensday.com
Web: http://www.internationalwomensday.com/contact.asp

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