Perhaps the most striking point about last week\u2019s huge DDoS attack, which took down more than 80 big websites and online services, is that the criminals behind the attack accomplished it not by particularly sophisticated or cutting-edge means, but by creating a veritable army of consumer connected devices \u2014 what we call the Internet of Things (IoT). In this post we explain the critical concepts and how this incident is connected with every one of us.<\/p>\n
On October 21, lots of Americans woke up to find some of their most popular websites were unavailable. No watching Netflix, no transacting business through PayPal, no online gaming with Sony PlayStation. And they couldn\u2019t even tweet about the problem \u2014 Twitter was down as well.<\/p>\n
In all, 85 major sites were either showing signs of stress or simply not responding at all.<\/p>\n
As it turned out, the underlying problem was a series of attacks \u2014 three in all \u2014 against the American Internet infrastructure. The first wave affected the East Coast. The second one affected users in California and the Midwest, as well as Europe. The third wave was mitigated by the efforts of Dyn<\/a>, the DNS service company that was the main target of all three attacks.<\/p>\n Music services, media, and many other<\/a> resources were affected. Amazon came in for special attention: a separate attack against it in Western Europe brought the site down for a while.<\/p>\n So, how is it possible to disrupt so many sites with just three attacks? To understand this, you need to know what DNS is.<\/p>\n Can't get on a website? This is a live map, right now, of the massive DDoS attacks on Dyn's servers. It is creating many issues right now. pic.twitter.com\/fekUqNgaL7<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Flying With Fish (@flyingwithfish) October 21, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nDNS and DDoS<\/h3>\n
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