BY CHRIS MILLS RODRIGO
American tech giant Cloudflare is providing cybersecurity to at least seven terrorist organizations and militant groups, HuffPost reported Friday.
Cloudflare has more server traffic than Twitter, Amazon, Apple, Instagram, Bing and Wikipedia combined, and makes refusing to regulate access to its services a central feature of their business.
As a result, several groups on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations, including the Taliban, al-Shabaab, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, al-Quds Brigades, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Hamas, are reportedly Cloudfare customers.
These groups run websites protected by the company, four national security and counter-extremism experts concluded to HuffPost.
It is a crime in the U.S. to provide "tangible" or "material" support to a designated terrorist organization. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has to grant special permission to anybody interested in providing those services.
Cloudflare has not received OFAC authorization, according to HuffPost.
The company has reportedly received warnings about shielding terrorist organizations since 2012.
Cloudflare’s general counsel, Doug Kramer, declined to comment on the specific websites, but told The Hill that the company is aware of their legal obligations and have mechanisms to address breaches.
“We know we have obligations, when we become aware of a claim that someone is in our service despite being a sanctioned entity then we have a policy in place to address that," Kramer explained.
He also mentioned that the company receives thousands of abuse complaints weekly and works through all of them to respond appropriately.
American tech giant Cloudflare is providing cybersecurity to at least seven terrorist organizations and militant groups, HuffPost reported Friday.
Cloudflare has more server traffic than Twitter, Amazon, Apple, Instagram, Bing and Wikipedia combined, and makes refusing to regulate access to its services a central feature of their business.
As a result, several groups on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations, including the Taliban, al-Shabaab, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, al-Quds Brigades, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Hamas, are reportedly Cloudfare customers.
These groups run websites protected by the company, four national security and counter-extremism experts concluded to HuffPost.
It is a crime in the U.S. to provide "tangible" or "material" support to a designated terrorist organization. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has to grant special permission to anybody interested in providing those services.
Cloudflare has not received OFAC authorization, according to HuffPost.
The company has reportedly received warnings about shielding terrorist organizations since 2012.
Cloudflare’s general counsel, Doug Kramer, declined to comment on the specific websites, but told The Hill that the company is aware of their legal obligations and have mechanisms to address breaches.
“We know we have obligations, when we become aware of a claim that someone is in our service despite being a sanctioned entity then we have a policy in place to address that," Kramer explained.
He also mentioned that the company receives thousands of abuse complaints weekly and works through all of them to respond appropriately.
