Diez.MD

Founded in 2013, Diez.md began as a youth-focused media outlet in Moldova. Over the past 12 years, it has grown into one of Moldova’s top independent media platforms, covering a range of topics including youth issues, education, politics, and social concerns.

Reaching over 1 million monthly views and nearly 500,000 unique users monthly, Diez.md is a vital information source in Moldova (population 2.4 million), publishing content in both Romanian and Russian. Founder of the outlet, Alexandru Lebedev says, “Our organization aims at elevating everyday life for young people in the region.”

As Diez.md's influence grew, so did the cyber threats. Beginning with increased attention on the outlet for political coverage, these threats escalated in 2022 when Diez.md's support for Ukraine and criticism of the Russian government led to its journalists being placed on a Putin-issued blacklist. Their website was blocked in Russia and became the target of sustained cyberattacks.

A major coordinated attack in mid-2023 nearly wiped out all of Diez.md’s Russian-language content. "The main content and two backups were erased," Lebedev says.“Luckily, we had one physical backup. But it still took us a week to get back online.”

Prior to 2023, Diez.md relied on basic security measures and the free version of Cloudflare. Overwhelmed by the June 2023 attacks, they contacted Internews, a Cloudflare Project Galileo partner. Through Internews, Diez.md joined Project Galileo with assistance from IBM and Cloudflare support teams. “We had no idea this kind of help existed,” Lebedev stated. “It was a huge relief.”

After joining Project Galileo, Diez.md experienced immediate improvements in site stability and performance, even during high-traffic events like elections and referendums. “Last fall, Moldova had presidential elections and a referendum on EU integration. Normally, 80% of websites crash from traffic or attacks. Thanks to Cloudflare, we stayed online,” Lebedev explained. Diez.md now uses a robust suite of Cloudflare tools, including:

• Web Application Firewall (WAF) with managed rule sets: This helps protect the website from common web exploits and vulnerabilities, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS). The managed rule sets mean Cloudflare keeps these protections up-to-date, so Diez.MD doesn't have to constantly monitor for new threats. This prevents malicious traffic from reaching the website's servers.
• DDoS protection to automatically mitigate attacks: Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks flood a website with traffic, overwhelming its servers and making it unavailable. Cloudflare's DDoS protection automatically detects and absorbs this malicious traffic, ensuring Diez.MD remains online even during an attack. This was crucial during high-traffic events like elections.
• Firewall rules and analytics for real-time threat monitoring: These tools allow Diez.MD to set specific rules to block or allow certain types of traffic, giving them greater control over security. The analytics provide real-time data on website traffic and potential threats, enabling them to identify and respond to issues quickly. This helps them maintain awareness of their security posture and proactively address emerging threats.

“Before Galileo, every attack brought everything to a halt,” Lebedev explains. “Our journalists work directly on the site, so when it’s slow or down, we can't publish. Our readers can’t access the news. Our metrics go down. Our projects are affected. And I can’t focus on anything else.”

Since onboarding with Project Galileo, cyber attacks on the newsroom no longer derail operations. “Now that we’re protected, we can focus on what matters, which is creating new projects, developing partnerships, and serving Moldova’s youth,” Lebedez adds. Diez.md stands out not just for its editorial voice, but for its unwavering focus on educating and empowering young Moldovans. Project Galileo ensures that this vital work continues, even under fire.