Alleged Hack Shuts Down 'New York' Magazine

If you tried typing "nymag.com" into your search bar Monday morning, you found a blank screen and a downed server. A hacker allegedly attacked New York magazine overnight, just hours after the rag published harrowing stories from 35 women accusing comedian Bill Cosby of rape and sexual assault, The Daily Dot reported. However, it's still unclear at this time if the magazine was actually hacked, or if the server crashed due to an influx of traffic to the Cosby piece. (Update: As of noon Monday, the website was back up.)

According to The Daily Dot, the alleged hacker is not targeting New York because he wants to silence Cosby's accusers. In fact, if the site was indeed hacked, it may have nothing to do with Cosby at all.

The hacker, identified by The Daily Dot as ThreatKing, said he picked the magazine because of his hatred for New York City. "Many stupid people at [sic] New York,” ThreatKing told The Daily Dot. He added, "I have not even seen the cover, LOL."

ThreatKing further explained his hatred for New York City stemmed from a recent visit. "I'll try my best to keep [New York] offline for 14 hours," the hacker added to The Daily Dot.

New York magazine tweeted about the downed server around 2:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday, stating that the site was "experiencing technical difficulties." ThreatKing, under the Twitter handle @Vikingdom2016, tweeted an ominous message back at the magazine.

ThreatKing claimed responsibility for the server attack early Monday morning on his apparent Twitter account. Although he told The Daily Dot that New York magazine will be down for 14 hours, ThreatKing tweeted that his plan was to keep the site offline for just seven hours.

At the time of this writing, New York magazine is still offline, making the stories of Bill Cosby's alleged victims inaccessible. The magazine has not given out any more public comments on the alleged attack. An anonymous source told The Daily Dot that staffers believe their site was on the receiving end of a server attack, but the magazine has not publicly confirmed an attack at this time.

For those who want to read the Cosby piece, New York magazine editor Abraham Riesman tweeted the story is accessible through magazine's iPad edition. The magazine also tweeted links to its Instagram page, which has testimonies from two of Cosby's victims.

Image: New York/Facebook