Last month, we wrote about Bruce Schneier's warning that certain unknown parties were carefully testing ways to take down the internet. They were doing carefully configured DDoS attacks, testing core internet infrastructure, focusing on key DNS servers. And, of course, we've also been talking about the rise of truly massive DDoS attacks, thanks to poorly secured Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and ancient, unpatched bugs.
That all came to a head this morning when large chunks of the internet went down for about two hours, thanks to a massive DDoS attack targeting managed DNS provider Dyn. Most of the down sites are back (I'm still having trouble reaching Twitter), but it was pretty widespread, and lots of big name sites all went down. Just check out this screenshot from Downdetector showing the outages on a bunch of sites:
1More
2More
MPAA Links Online Piracy to Obama's Cybersecurity Plan | TorrentFreak [# ! + Note] - 0 views
1More
Italian Parliament Publishes Draft Internet Bill Of Rights | Techdirt - 0 views
1More
German Film Distributor Issues Takedown Request Falsely Targeting IMDb, Reddit And Tech... - 0 views
2More
After Protests Continue, Hungary Dumps Stupid Internet Tax Idea | Techdirt - 0 views
2More
Law Professor Claims Any Internet Company 'Research' On Users Without Review Board Appr... - 1 views
1More
Dangerous Ruling: EU Says Google Must Help People Disappear Stuff They Don't Like From ... - 0 views
2More
Analysis Of Pirated Oscar Movies Shows They're Almost All Available... In HD (And Not F... - 0 views
2More
French Government Starts Blocking Websites With Views The Gov't Doesn't Like - 0 views
3More
Parallel Conduct: How ISPs Make The Consolidated Internet Service Market Even Worse | T... - 0 views
1More
Russian Copyright Law Allows Entire News Site To Be Shut Down Over A Single Copied Arti... - 0 views
1More
ACTA Failure Inspires The Most Clueless Column Ever | Techdirt - 2 views
1More
What Happens When You Marry The NSA's Surveillance Database With Amazon's Personalized ... - 0 views
1More
Steve Albini Takes On 'Parasitic' Record Labels And Copyright's 'Outdated' Illusion Of ... - 0 views
2More
UK Culture Secretary: Search Engines Must Magically Stop Piracy Or Else! | Techdirt - 1 views
1More