The Trump Hotels website is displaying a “Checking your browser before accessing Trumphotels.com” notification upon loading the page—a strong indication the site is in full defense mode against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
Philip Bump, a correspondent for the Washington Post, pointed it out on Twitter, adding a photo of an error query that should not be visible to end users:
Trump Hotels getting DDOS’d? pic.twitter.com/QUnsQcHRNb
— Philip Bump (@pbump) February 1, 2017
Looks like it. pic.twitter.com/dvPEA1ymNp
— Philip Bump (@pbump) February 1, 2017
Some security folks chimed in on Twitter, explaining that exposing a query is never a good practice, and usually a sign of a weak security configuration.
Trump Hotels was successfully attacked twice in a span of six months last year. Hackers were able to place malicious software on the hotel’s payment system and gain information on anyone who visited the chain between May 2014 and June 2015.
The hotel chain seems to have beefed up its cybersecurity efforts with help from internet security services company CloudFlare.
We have reached out to Trump Hotels for comment on any DDoS attacks on its website. We will continue to update this story as we gain more information.
