MASSIVE DDOS ATTACK THAT SHUTDOWN HALF OF THE INTERNET WEBSITE INCLUDING TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, SPOTIFY, ETC. OCTOBER 21, 2016
500,000 of devices are infected of Botnets IoT (Internet of Things) named Mirai malware.
The cyberattacks which affected popular websites from Twitter to Reddit are the result of malware called “Mirai”, which manipulated smart technology to take the sites offline. The malware used vulnerable technology to launch a Distributed Denial of Service attack, overwhelming the web service DYN with traffic resulting in slow Internet speeds and offline sites.
It turns out the botnet was specifically designed to scan the internet for poorly secured products like cameras and then access them through easily guessable passwords like “admin” or “12345.” Last Friday, the botnet’s maker released its source code, and security experts have noticed it’s built to try a list of more than 60 combinations of user names and passwords.
According to
HackRead, ‘Mirai’ can break into a wide range of IoT devices from CCTV cameras to DVRs to home networking equipment turning them into ‘bots’. There are nearly half a million Mirai-powered bots worldwide, according to telecommunications company and internet service provider (ISP) Level 3 Communications. Here are the countries with the highest concentrations of IoT devices
- United States: 29 percent
- Brazil: 23 percent
- Colombia: 8 percent
It looks like this attack has been renewed. Twitter is down entirely, and other affected sites are responding much slower than normal (or not at all) right now. We'll keep an eye on this and update as things develop.
Twitter, Spotify, the New York Times, Reddit, Yelp, Box, Pinterest and Paypal
