Greenspan Sought Court Action Over Cyberattacks
PlainSite operator requested discovery from DCI Group regarding cyberattacks.
Updated on Sept. 21, 2026 in Cybersecurity
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Aaron Greenspan has filed a request in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to question Bola Tinubu and DCI Group. The filing concerns distributed denial-of-service attacks that have targeted the legal research website PlainSite.
Why it matters
Greenspan contends that the digital attacks against his platform correlate with specific legal filings and deadlines. He is seeking official discovery to investigate potential links between the site traffic and these external entities.
The attacks reached peak traffic of 1 gigabit per second with 1.8 million packets per second. The server load average hit 500 during the August 2026 incidents, involving approximately 110,000 unique source hosts.
The players
Aaron Greenspan
He is the operator of the legal research website PlainSite.
Bola Tinubu
He is a central figure named in the court filing regarding potential connections to cyberattacks.
DCI Group
This organization registered as an agent for the Nigerian government and is the subject of a subpoena request.
The details
The court request includes six written questions and four requests for admission for Tinubu, along with a subpoena for DCI Group to produce documents. Greenspan alleges these technical disruptions began in April 2025 and notes a $4.5 million payment was issued to DCI Group in December 2025.
Timeline
April 2025: Initial DDoS attacks began on the PlainSite website.
December 12, 2025: DCI Group received a $4.5 million payment.
August 6, 2026: An intense DDoS attack against the platform began.
September 9, 2026: Greenspan filed the request in US District Court.
The Tech Race
This case reflects the increasing use of the legal system to challenge the rise of state-linked digital infrastructure manipulation. It marks a departure from traditional cybersecurity defense by attempting to force the identification of anonymous, large-scale botnet operators through litigation.
The outcome of this filing could influence how independent researchers protect their platforms from large-scale botnet attacks. Users of legal research sites should note that such technical disruptions may impact the availability of document archives and ongoing case monitoring.
The takeaway
The case highlights the technical and legal challenges involved in identifying the source of distributed denial-of-service attacks. Readers should be aware that attributing cyber traffic to specific entities often requires extensive judicial discovery and verified evidence.
Further reading
Explore the evolving landscape of digital threats and legal defenses on our Cybersecurity page.
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