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Hackers target people with epilepsy with mass strobe cyberattack designed to trigger seizures, advocacy group warns

Foundation says Twitter followers were deliberately sent flashing images during awareness month

Conrad Duncan
Tuesday 17 December 2019 12:57 GMT
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Writer Kurt Eichenwald was targeted with a flashing image in 2016 after he posted criticism of Donald Trump on social media
Writer Kurt Eichenwald was targeted with a flashing image in 2016 after he posted criticism of Donald Trump on social media

Videos and images of flashing strobe lights have been deliberately sent to people with epilepsy in a mass cyberattack designed to trigger seizures, according to an epilepsy group.

The Epilepsy Foundation has filed criminal complaints alleging a series of attacks on social media which targeted the group’s Twitter feed during a national awareness month.

Thirty attacks were reported in the first week of November by the foundation, which has more than 30,000 followers on Twitter.

“These attacks are no different than a person carrying a strobe light into a convention of people with epilepsy and seizures, with the intention of inducing seizures and thereby causing significant harm to the participants,” Allison Nichol, director of legal advocacy for the foundation, said.

“The fact that these attacks came during National Epilepsy Awareness Month only highlights their reprehensible nature.”

The attacks are reportedly similar to those against Kurt Eichenwald, a prominent journalist and author with epilepsy, who was targeted after posting criticism of Donald Trump in 2016.

In that attack, Mr Eichenwald was sent a flashing GIF which featured the words “YOU DESERVE A SEIZURE FOR YOUR POSTS”.

The author suffered a seizure and said he would have died if his wife had not found him quickly.

The man who sent the GIF, John Rayne Rivello, is now expected to plead guilty to aggravated assault after a court battle that could help provide people with epilepsy with powers to battle online attackers.

Court records show Mr Rivello sent private messages on Twitter in the hours following his tweet to Mr Eichenwald which indicate that he intended to harm the author.

“I hope this sends him into a seizure,” he wrote in one message.

“Let's see if he dies,” he wrote in another.

Following the alleged attacks in November, the Epilepsy Foundation has said it intends to hold those responsible “fully accountable”.

Although an investigation into the incident is ongoing, the foundation believes it was a coordinated campaign.

In 2008, a support forum for the foundation was hacked and targeted with hundreds of messages which included strobe GIFs, in an apparent attempt to harm members with epilepsy.

There are approximately 3.5 million people with epilepsy in the US, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Epilepsy Foundation has said exposure to flashing lights can trigger seizures for about 3 per cent of those people.

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