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A massive cyber attack temporarily shut down access to some of the internet’s most popular websites yesterday, after a company that manages internet traffic came under attack.
For a significant part of yesterday, internet users in parts of Canada, the US and Europe lost access to websites such as Twitter, Netflix, Spotify, Reddit and Airbnb.
Mr. Assange is still alive and WikiLeaks is still publishing. We ask supporters to stop taking down the US internet. You proved your point. pic.twitter.com/XVch196xyL
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 21, 2016
The blackout began yesterday, just after 7 a.m., when Dyn, a company acts as an internet switchboard by management website domains and routing internet traffic, was targeted with an overwhelming series of distributed denial of service attacks.
DDoS attacks shut down websites by essentially flooding them with so much data they can’t process it all. These kinds of attacks are increasing at an alarming rate, but what made yesterday’s attack particularity troubling was that it took over basic household items to cause more damage.
Using a relatively simple hacking program, those responsible for the attack infected home networks with malware, taking over any internet-connected devices (like DVRs, cameras, routers and even thermostats) and adding them to the swarm of bots carrying out the attack.
“It could be your DVR, it could be a CCTV camera, a thermostat. I even saw an Internet-connected toaster on Kickstarter yesterday," Dyn’s chief strategy officer, Kyle York told reporters Friday.
“It’s a very smart attack. We start to mitigate, they react. It keeps on happening every time.”
In total, Dyn was hit with three DDoS attacks over the course of the day, which was enough to cause the widespread internet outage.
The company said it resolved the issue at around 10 p.m. yesterday, but the damage was enough to get the FBI involved: the agency said yesterday it was investigating the attack.
Internet security experts have been raising alarm bells over the ever-increasing number of DDoS attacks, with some suggesting foreign governments are involved.
Right now, it remains unclear who was behind the attacks, but a tweet from Wikileaks yesterday asked its supporters to “stop taking down the US internet.”
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange recently had his internet access cut off by the Ecuadorian embassy where he currently lives, after his website published leaked emails from HIllary Clinton’s campaign staff.
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