http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/business/internet-problems-attack.html
The company, Dyn, whose servers monitor and reroute internet traffic, said it began experiencing what security experts called a distributed denial-of-service attack just after 7 a.m. Reports that many sites were inaccessible started on the East Coast, but spread westward in three waves as the day wore on and into the evening.
And in a troubling development, the attack appears to have relied on hundreds of thousands of internet-connected devices like cameras, baby monitors and home routers that have been infected — without their owners’ knowledge — with software that allows hackers to command them to flood a target with overwhelming traffic.
(see
Source code for Mirai IoT Malware was recently released
"Infected systems can be cleaned by rebooting them, but since scanning for these devices happens at a constant rate, it’s possible for them to be reinfected within minutes of a reboot. This means users have to change the default password immediately after rebooting, or prevent the device from accessing the internet until they can reset the firmware and change the password locally. If you’re taking these steps, make sure to no longer use Telnet, FTP, or HTTP, and instead use their encrypted counterparts SSH, SFTP, and HTTPS.
The underlying problem is that IoT manufacturers are only designing the devices for functionality and aren’t investing in proper security testing. Right now, it’s up to the consumer to scrutinize the security on any devices they use.")
Dyn, based in Manchester, N.H., said it had fended off the assault by 9:30 a.m. But by 11:52 a.m.,
Dyn said it was again under attack. After fending off the second wave of attacks, Dyn said at 5 p.m. that it was again facing a flood of traffic.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said on the NBC News program “Meet the Press
” this month that the United States was prepared to respond to Russia’s election attacks in kind. “We’re sending a message,” Mr. Biden said. “We have the capacity to do it.”
But technology providers in the United States could suffer blowback. As Dyn fell under recurring attacks on Friday, Mr. York, the chief strategist, said such assaults were the reason so many companies are pushing at least parts of their infrastructure to cloud computing networks, to decentralize their systems and make them harder to attack.
“
It’s a total wild, wild west out there,” Mr. York said. (Call in the Cavalry!)
(Time to check anything you have that accesses the Net. This was global due to it being Dyn - Swedish Government websites were down as well)
