Much of the internet was offline on Friday, as hackers targeted Dyn, one of the largest DNS service providers.
Prominent sites like Twitter, Etsy, Amazon, and AirBnB were among those affected. Many parts of the United States--especially the east coast--reported large internet outages, as hackers regrouped and attacked on three separate occasions. Thus far, no group has claimed responsibility.
In layman’s terms, it went something like this. Hackers flooded Dyn’s servers with junk traffic, overwhelming them. This blocked legitimate traffic from accessing these websites. There was just too much interference for much of anything to get through.
Sadly, it appears we could see more of these attacks going forward. There’s a reason why hackers use DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. They work pretty well.
With so many devices connected to the internet without much security attached, it’s not exceptionally difficult for hackers to gain enough control to do some damage. Last week’s attack was partially carried out from the Mirai botnet, which is a large network of internet-connected devices infected by a virus.
The code used to build the botnet has been leaked online, which could make it much easier for copycat hackers to plan their own DDOS attacks.
One thing is for sure. Hackers certainly have a motive to continue these attacks, even if it’s just the satisfaction of shutting down the internet for a while. Thus, look for them to continue until the companies themselves can built effective tools to thwart DDOS attacks.
