COLUMBUS, Ind. — For millions of Americans, including thousands of Hoosiers, Friday was an online disaster as internet users lost access to some of the world’s most popular websites. Computer hackers attacked servers along the East Coast with deceptive traffic until the sites crashed; then they moved westward.
A global attack on one provider of Domain Name System Services, Dyn Inc., led to the taking down sites, such as Twitter, The New York Times, Spotify, CNN, and many others for extended periods of time.
Reportedly, hackers launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), where they used “tens of millions” of malware-infected devices that were connected to the internet.
It is anticipated that these kinds of attacks will become much more common in the future. Security professionals have been anticipating a rise in attacks coming from malware that targets the “Internet of Things,” a new breed of small devices that have been online. This attack comes after a hacker reportedly released software codes that have influenced malware, such as Mirai, a few weeks ago.
While DDoS attacks don’t actually steal anything, they do create a mess for internet users. With attacks on the internet’s Domain Name System, hackers weaken the underlying technology that governs how the web functions.
