Twitter website shut after attack

[edesignuk]

Micro-blogging service Twitter was taken offline in what the company believes was a co-ordinated attack.

The popular site has been subject to a so-called denial-of-service attack, according to the firm's official blog.

Denial-of-service attacks take various forms but often involve a company's servers being flooded with data in an effort to disable them.

The outage began Thursday morning but the geographic scale of the attack is still not known.

BBC.

 

[guydude193]

I think it's so funny how these things happen to Twitter. Facebook usually isn't this way.

 

[Drumjim85]

it's back up now.

 

[xUKHCx]

Where will channel 4 get their news from now

 

[rdowns]

Wondering how the Twores handled the outage.

 

[AngryApple]

I have done one or two DOS attacks, but I would never do it on a big company like Twitter. I wonder if Twitter will pursue legal action.

 

[Mac Kiwi]

Curious this happens so soon after Ajads re election.

 

[dmr727]

I have done one or two DOS attacks, but I would never do it on a big company like Twitter.

What did you do - go to someone's web site and click the refresh button as fast as you could?

 

[the vj]

My Twitter account was cancelled last week because some one was using it to send spam. :s

 

[Jaffa Cake]

Blimey. I hope Stephen Fry's alright. Has anyone checked on Stephen Fry?

 

[andrewsd]

Oh no what will they do.. Oh it's back up now.

 

[arkitect]

Blimey. I hope Stephen Fry's alright. Has anyone checked on Stephen Fry?

That's a joke. Right?

I just don't get Stephen Fry like other people do.

 

[mkrishnan]

I have done one or two DOS attacks, but I would never do it on a big company like Twitter. I wonder if Twitter will pursue legal action.

Actually, this one sounds like it has the potential to get much more interesting... the latest word is that the attack might have had something to do with the conflict in Georgia...

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/07/attack-on-twitter-came-in-two-waves/?hp

The meltdown that left 45 million Twitter users unable to access the service on Thursday came in two waves and was directed at a single blogger who has voiced his support for the Republic of Georgia in that country’s continuing conflict with Russia.

Facebook’s chief security officer, Max Kelly, told CNet that the attack was aimed at a user known as Cyxymu, who had accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal and other sites affected by Thursday’s cyberassault.

In an interview with The Guardian, the blogger said he believed the strike was an attempt to silence his criticism on the behavior of Russia in the conflict over the South Ossetia region in Georgia, which began a year ago on Friday.

So perhaps it wasn't just some teen social rebel in a US suburb plotting the bourgeoisie faux-revolution...

 

[jump4joy]

Hi
I've only been using a Mac for a little while. I'm just wondering if visiting the affected sites of the attack if I could have picked up anything? If so what signs would I look for to know that I had been affected?
Thanks

 

[mkrishnan]

Hi
I've only been using a Mac for a little while. I'm just wondering if visiting the affected sites of the attack if I could have picked up anything? If so what signs would I look for to know that I had been affected?
Thanks

Without getting into a detailed side-topic (you can forum search or Google search to learn about Mac viruses, bots, spyware, etc), it's (extremely) unlikely that you would get infected by visiting the affected sites of the denial-of-service attack. There are technologies like this for Macs, but they're not numerous in the wild. The typical vectors (how they get on your system) for these are either through direct user intervention (i.e. someone installing something on your computer while physically present) or else Trojan payloads that are carried in software you personally install -- typically this happens when you download pirated software or (maybe less frequently) porn.

If you're really concerned, you can install basic anti-virus software and check for potential viruses. You can also search for "Little Snitch" -- there are numerous threads about this, and you can use it to monitor outgoing traffic (that is, see which programs are communicating with the internet and how), which would allow you to manually identify any potential problems.

But again, the likelihood of any of this is low unless you install illicit software.

If that doesn't answer your questions, please start a new thread on this topic to ask more questions.

 

[dmmcintyre3]

What did you do - go to someone's web site and click the refresh button as fast as you could?

With a few other computers doing it too most likely. Unless it was somebody's 128Kb/sec upload and a 300 MHz server with a 400 MB image file loading 200 times