Twitter, Netflix, Reddit, or even the “New York Times” : some of the biggest websites in the world have been severely disrupted, mainly for the american internet users.
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A strong computer attack has crippled a part of the Web, mainly in the United States, since the end of the afternoon, Friday, October 21. The company at the heart of the perturbations, Dyn, announced shortly after midnight, Paris time, that the incident had been resolved.
The attack, of the type ” denial of service “, which is to saturate a connection service to the falls inaccessible, has referred more specifically to the services in Domain Name System (DNS) of Dyn. The DNS is sort of the referral of the Internet : when a user types a domain name into their browser, for example www.lemonde.fr it is the DNS server that auto-orients the user to the desired website.
We can’t access certain sites via the DNS servers of Dyn. Overwhelmed by the attack, they can no longer meet : the attack is not aimed at the sites themselves, but the infrastructure used by internet users to reach them.
Read also : Behind a series of attacks on high-power computer, a network of connected objects hacked
Second wave
The outage has hit sites among the most important of the planet. Some have been severely disrupted, others completely inaccessible. The social network Twitter, video site Netflix, the forum, Reddit or the site of the New York Times is part of the sites affected. Most of the disturbances have affected users located in the United States, even if some sites were inaccessible from Europe.
A first attack started in the middle of the afternoon, but was quickly overcome. the ” It was not an attack by denial-of-service standard told the New York Times, Kyle York, executive at Dyn, immediately after the offensive. He did not believe so well to say : a second wave arrived shortly before 18 hours (Paris time).
in the Face of the magnitude of the attack, the FBI and the Department of homeland security u.s. announced that they have commenced an investigation. the ” Dyn has been targeted by people prepared. This attack is without doubt the result of extensive preparation, thorough “, considers hot, a good connoisseur of the industry.
The denial of service attacks are frequent. Those that affect the DNS servers are also. More rare are those who manage to disrupt the functioning of a major player in this industry as Dyn. the ” What is special in this attack, it is its duration, which is quite exceptional. This is very worrying because these infrastructures are considered to be the most robust “, considers Matthew Bonenfant, product manager at Stormshield.
Internet of things
This attack against Dyn will keep the wind of concern that breath for several weeks about the attacks in denial of service. According to the company Verisign, who has recently published a report on the subject, they would have been up 85 % in the world between the end of 2014 and the end of 2015.
The French company OVH has done precisely the object, the end of September, a violent denial of service attack carried out by networks of connected objects. the ” We can ask big questions about the robustness of some of the Internet resources in the coming months, particularly because of the Internet of things “, explains Mr. Bonenfant. the ” The number of terminals easily accessible increases “ and can be mobilized without the knowledge of their owners to launch attacks. This is an attack carried out by the connected objects that has touched OVH.
in Mid-September, Bruce Schneier, an expert internationally recognized cyber security, published an article apocalyptic explaining that ” somebody was trying to test the defenses of businesses that handle basic parts of the Internet “ in view of an attack. Even if this description perfectly corresponds to the company Dyn, it is too early to know if the ongoing attack against Dyn is related to the prediction of Mr Schneier.
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