Twitter Interrupted! (DDOS attack)

[Cresenthia]

Oh my god, the incorrect terms today are making me sick...

Just to clear this up for everyone: DDoS is NOT a form of hacking. DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. There's no hacking involved in the attack; rather it can better be compared to just hitting a server with blunt force rather than actually hacking into it and messing with the information inside.

A DDoS works by taking a whole bunch of computers and commanding them to flood the targeted server with an extremely large amount of requests, bogging down the network to the point of not allowing any more connections to the site. Think about it like trying to shove 10,000 people through the doors of a small bank all at once, preventing regular people from getting inside like they want/need to.

It is NOT a form of hacking. No data in the actual server is being manipulated (unless a virus or a trojan somehow got inside and compromised the server beforehand). You can't just DDoS a voting booth or something and manipulate the votes already casted. All it will do is severely inhibit the ability to cast said vote.

If I'm wrong somewhere about this, please let me know. I am very certain, though, that a DDoS by definition is not supposed to manipulate data within the server.

That is all.

So basically this is just an asshole move

Yes.

[PaNTuXIa]

Or it could be Russia. It's either Clinton or Russia.

or just some twelve-year old trolls

We are being too quick to blame someone without any evidence. We have no paper trails to track who did it yet. Sure, it could be Russia or NK, but we don't have enough evidence to make conclusions yet.

I said Hillary Clinton. Not North Korea.

get yer facts straight

[Cresenthia]

We are being too quick to blame someone without any evidence. We have no paper trails to track who did it yet. Sure, it could be Russia or NK, but we don't have enough evidence to make conclusions yet.

I said Hillary Clinton. Not North Korea.

get yer facts straight

Clinton and her campaign people may be misguided, but there is just about zero chance that it was them.

[Thermodolia]

We are being too quick to blame someone without any evidence. We have no paper trails to track who did it yet. Sure, it could be Russia or NK, but we don't have enough evidence to make conclusions yet.

I said Hillary Clinton. Not North Korea.

get yer facts straight

They can add NK to the list if they want to

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Too bad they got arrested, cause otherwise I'd say...

LIZARD SQUAD

[Galiagolach]

So basically this is just an asshole move

There could be many motives for this.

It is noteworthy that this has happened on such a wide scale on very high-traffic websites. And there have been reported incidents in the past of servers overheating to the point of damaging hardware due to DDoS attacks (this is extremely rare though).

Whether this is some coordinated effort of some mildly inconvenient cyberterrorism, or just some angsty 17 year-old playing with a few of daddy's old computers to "show the world what he can do" is still a mystery. The problem with DDoS attacks is that usually (if the perpetrator is smart) each different computer making the requests will have a different IP, and thus would make it very hard to track the exact location.

But we shouldn't be worrying too much unless it somehow does turn out to be the former. Cyberattacks literally happen every second, and all DDoS attacks are capable of is just making the site unavailable. It's not really certain whether another one will occur, but honestly, will it really be THAT much of a bother to lose Twitter for a couple hours? With how many resources were hit, they're bound to figure out at some point.

Until then, all we can do is wait and go about our internet lives.

And believe me, a DDoS is extremely mild compared to exploits that have happened in the past (like Heartbleed).

[Balkenreich]

Too bad they got arrested, cause otherwise I'd say...

LIZARD SQUAD

get out of here with that cancerous shit.

[Chernobyliya]

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ghost/2016 ... pisode-377

CURRENTLY BEING DISCUSSED

[Lady Scylla]

So basically this is just an asshole move

There could be many motives for this.

It is noteworthy that this has happened on such a wide scale on very high-traffic websites. And there have been reported incidents in the past of servers overheating to the point of damaging hardware due to DDoS attacks (this is extremely rare though).

Whether this is some coordinated effort of some mildly inconvenient cyberterrorism, or just some angsty 17 year-old playing with a few of daddy's old computers to "show the world what he can do" is still a mystery. The problem with DDoS attacks is that usually (if the perpetrator is smart) each different computer making the requests will have a different IP, and thus would make it very hard to track the exact location.

But we shouldn't be worrying too much unless it somehow does turn out to be the former. Cyberattacks literally happen every second, and all DDoS attacks are capable of is just making the site unavailable. It's not really certain whether another one will occur, but honestly, will it really be THAT much of a bother to lose Twitter for a couple hours? With how many resources were hit, they're bound to figure out at some point.

Until then, all we can do is wait and go about our internet lives.

And believe me, a DDoS is extremely mild compared to exploits that have happened in the past (like Heartbleed).

Successful DDoS attacks utilise a bot-net to overload server traffic with packet requests. Most large sites have DDoS failsafes such as temporary or even permanent blocks on certain IP ranges, or other methods of deflecting such attacks.

Really, you'd need a very, very large botnet to hit a site like Twitter who already has massive traffic as is. I doubt such a site would be down for long, or, more than likely, they simply enforced a traffic cap for a set amount of time to funnel in traffic and avoid the servers from being overwhelmed. As far as finding them, a lot of proxy services are public record in order to avoid being sued up the ass.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

PlayStation network seems to also be down for the same reason.

[Lancaster of Wessex]

PlayStation network seems to also be down for the same reason.

Thankfully my NES emulator website works perfectly still!

(That does suck though.)

[Vlamistaatti]

Too bad they got arrested, cause otherwise I'd say...

LIZARD SQUAD

Nah, its cute poodles this time probably.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

PlayStation network seems to also be down for the same reason.

Thankfully my NES emulator website works perfectly still!

(That does suck though.)

It does. But hey, at least the XBox network is up and running.

[Internationalist Bastard]

So since I know nothing of Twitter, what actual purpose is there hacking into it?

[Lady Scylla]

Oh my god, the incorrect terms today are making me sick...

Just to clear this up for everyone: DDoS is NOT a form of hacking. DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. There's no hacking involved in the attack; rather it can better be compared to just hitting a server with blunt force rather than actually hacking into it and messing with the information inside.

A DDoS works by taking a whole bunch of computers and commanding them to flood the targeted server with an extremely large amount of requests, bogging down the network to the point of not allowing any more connections to the site. Think about it like trying to shove 10,000 people through the doors of a small bank all at once, preventing regular people from getting inside like they want/need to.

It is NOT a form of hacking. No data in the actual server is being manipulated (unless a virus or a trojan somehow got inside and compromised the server beforehand). You can't just DDoS a voting booth or something and manipulate the votes already casted. All it will do is severely inhibit the ability to cast said vote.

If I'm wrong somewhere about this, please let me know. I am very certain, though, that a DDoS by definition is not supposed to manipulate data within the server.

That is all.

You're completely correct.

[Internationalist Bastard]

Oh my god, the incorrect terms today are making me sick...

Just to clear this up for everyone: DDoS is NOT a form of hacking. DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. There's no hacking involved in the attack; rather it can better be compared to just hitting a server with blunt force rather than actually hacking into it and messing with the information inside.

A DDoS works by taking a whole bunch of computers and commanding them to flood the targeted server with an extremely large amount of requests, bogging down the network to the point of not allowing any more connections to the site. Think about it like trying to shove 10,000 people through the doors of a small bank all at once, preventing regular people from getting inside like they want/need to.

It is NOT a form of hacking. No data in the actual server is being manipulated (unless a virus or a trojan somehow got inside and compromised the server beforehand). You can't just DDoS a voting booth or something and manipulate the votes already casted. All it will do is severely inhibit the ability to cast said vote.

If I'm wrong somewhere about this, please let me know. I am very certain, though, that a DDoS by definition is not supposed to manipulate data within the server.

That is all.

You're completely correct.

Ah, so it's even more likely to just be trolls?

[Lady Scylla]

So since I know nothing of Twitter, what actual purpose is there hacking into it?

They're not hacking into it. Hacking is done covertly by finding a backdoor (an exploit) into a server or system, and then committing other acts from there, such as data farming, surveillance, corruption, et cetera. DDoS is a flood attack similar to a Ping of Death, or other attacks -- as explained by another poster, the attack is dependent on 'flooding' the traffic of a server until it can no longer handle the load. Imagine you've got ports on a server, and their doors -- a typical user's computer will send a packet (a knock) on such a door, and if the server allows it and returns the packet, a connection is established. In a DDoS attack, like the gent above explained, you have computers (known as zombies) on a botnet which is a network put together to create thousands of fake requests, and they launch an attack on those doors. (Fitting 10,000 people through three doors, as an example)

Back in the day, such attacks would crash servers, but today, most servers if their security is setup correctly, merely implement a traffic cap, or temporary block all incoming requests to avoid crashing. It means that people won't be able to reach the site, or the connection will be slow, but it keeps the servers from having to be rebooted following the attack. Beyond that, it doesn't manipulate data or anything, it's more of a "we took down your site" move.

[Lady Scylla]

You're completely correct.

Ah, so it's even more likely to just be trolls?

There's varying reasons. When I was a code monkey on the backend of game servers, we often got hit with mild attacks because of people we banned. We only had a few serious incidents. Groups like Anonymous do DDoS attacks and consider such a method of expression, it draws attention to their causes, and they try to use them to bring such light to things they think are important. Other groups do it just to prove they can, and some do it because they just want to be a nuisance.

[Alvecia]

What's so special about this?
I just naturally assume sites like Twitter are being constantly DDOS'd

[Lady Scylla]

What's so special about this?
I just naturally assume sites like Twitter are being constantly DDOS'd

It's the series of attacks across a multitude of sites that's drawn concern.

[Alvecia]

What's so special about this?
I just naturally assume sites like Twitter are being constantly DDOS'd

It's the series of attacks across a multitude of sites that's drawn concern.

Looks like they just targeted the DNS service provider rather than the sites themselves. Could just be some script kiddies got a little ambitious.

[Lady Scylla]

It's the series of attacks across a multitude of sites that's drawn concern.

Looks like they just targeted the DNS service provider rather than the sites themselves. Could just be some script kiddies got a little ambitious.

Yeah, most likely scriptkiddies. Which, they always irritate me, not because they're disruptive, but because it takes little effort.

[Minoa]

For the poll, I say autres, because it is not the only serious problem out here alongside database breaches and spying allegations, but also how easy it is to get infected with ransomware.

Known as "malvertising", the rising trend of such is keeping many from even thinking of disabling ad blockers (source: https://blog.malwarebytes.com/101/2016/ ... t-bad-ads/). In short, you can fall victim to ransomware just by being served adverts. Websites that want to block ad blockers are unwittingly allowing ransomware distribution to an extent.

Granted that the solution is to toughen enforcement, but it has become a game of cat and mouse that the ad networks are losing.

If the Internet continues to get dangerous, then I cannot rule out quitting the Internet entirely, but to do so right now would isolate me socially. I actually believe that one day the government will advise us against using the Internet at all, given the deteriorating situation.

[Lady Scylla]

For the poll, I say autres, because it is not the only serious problem out here alongside database breaches and spying allegations, but also how easy it is to get infected with ransomware.

Known as "malvertising", the rising trend of such is keeping many from even thinking of disabling ad blockers (source: https://blog.malwarebytes.com/101/2016/ ... t-bad-ads/). In short, you can fall victim to ransomware just by being served adverts. Websites that want to block ad blockers are unwittingly allowing ransomware distribution to an extent.

Granted that the solution is to toughen enforcement, but it has become a game of cat and mouse that the ad networks are losing.

If the Internet continues to get dangerous, then I cannot rule out quitting the Internet entirely, but to do so right now would isolate me socially. I actually believe that one day the government will advise us against using the Internet at all, given the deteriorating situation.

Malicious ads are why I don't go anywhere without my adblock. Sorry, Forbes, but unless you want to buy me a new machine, I'm not disabling my adblock.

[Victoriala II]

PlayStation network seems to also be down for the same reason.

It's just nintendo running sony to the ground.