SCI/TECH: Major websites hit with DDoS attack today, outages at google, yahoo..., page 1

posted on Jun, 15 2004 @ 07:59 PM

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Welcome to the cyber world so many of us call a home away from home. A place where we can escape the stress of the day or just enjoy all of the amazing content here at ATS. Today there was a blackout on the internet for a period of time involving domain names and sites such as Yahoo, Google, Microsoft.com and Apple.com. and I was there....

News.com

in name outage Tuesday morning that left many popular Web sites such as Yahoo, Google, Microsoft.com and Apple.com temporarily inaccessible was the result of an Internet attack, according to Web infrastructure company Akamai.

The attack caused problems for more than two hours--from 5:30 a.m. to 7:45 a.m. PDT. Many of the world's most popular sites suffered from widespread outages, according to Keynote Systems, which compiles statistics related to Web surfing. On a typical day, the top 40 sites measured by Keynote rarely dip below 99 percent availability. On Tuesday, however, Keynote saw availability drop to 81 percent.

A denial-of-service attack rattles a key Internet service at Akamai and knocks Yahoo, Google and others offline temporarily.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Well this seems simple enough but I have to wonder how many became paranoid over this as we all know and will not admit you are always just a click away from something that can send you into a fit of panic... or worse.

OMG.... Have I gotten a virus?

Is this the signal of the end of the world?

Hey if google is down it must be a nuclear attack.

Were there any 911 calls?

The cyber world is always a click away from taking your sanity. or is it.. So sit back, Relax, check your anti-virus software and get ready today may be the day you lose it online. over a link that no longer works.

[edit on 15-6-2004 by Nerdling]

IMMORTAL

posted on Jun, 15 2004 @ 08:23 PM

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Maybe that was why I could not access my Yahoo! e-mail account. It was an attack and on such a major scale. Maybe it was a test for what is to come.

Indy

posted on Jun, 15 2004 @ 08:43 PM

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Its very disturbing. I called 911 and told them that I could not access Google. I heard the operator yell this info to other 911 reps and then I heard screaming and what sounded like a mad rush for the door. :-) j/k . Is there some kind of hacker holiday today?

posted on Jun, 15 2004 @ 09:45 PM

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Maybe this is coincidence, maybe it isn't.

For the last several days, my poor PC has been hit by virus after virus. Thinking it no big deal, I'm talking to a friend at work today, when I find out he and 2 other people have been hammered the last few days as well.

Actually, the sole reason I came on ATS tonight was to see if something was up.

DOS attacks notwithstanding, has anyone else noticed a major uptick in virus activity the last few days? (Seriously!)

Indy

posted on Jun, 15 2004 @ 09:46 PM

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I had a bunch in one day. But I thank my kids for that. :-/

Spectre

posted on Jun, 15 2004 @ 09:54 PM

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Originally posted by Q
...DOS attacks notwithstanding, has anyone else noticed a major uptick in virus activity the last few days? (Seriously!)

It was a pretty hectic day for Internet problems where I am, not the worst I have seen by far. Virus and worm threats are in wide circulation. Our servers get a few hundred hits a day. E-mail attacks were bad. Our little part of the world got hit with 6,000 junk and infected messages on top of the normal traffic!

McPhearsom

posted on Jun, 16 2004 @ 01:47 AM

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Apple.com cannot be hurt be conventional viruses as the server does not run windows, which makes it a good site to sheck for internet connections (if it goes down, it is an attack, not a virus). If the site does goes down, I check on the international versions. This sort of thing is common though, and if no sites work then it is your connection.

If you really are worried, make a list of sites hosted in different countries, then you can try them all to see which countries may have had web attacks.

Personally I'd be more worried if the televisions or radios stopped working...

also (sorry ot state the obvious) any computer running windows will get a virus at some stage, it is just something you have to deal with. Either get better firewall and anti-virus software or use MacOS or Linux...

The increase in virus/web attacks you seem to notice is probably in response to everyone cracking down on them, they want to get as much out before they are shut down, though personally I've seen a decrease...

Oh, and don't call 911, what a waste of time that is... better to call your ISP

Spectre

posted on Jun, 16 2004 @ 03:40 AM

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Here is a very minor update on the situation from "The Register"

Akamai goes postal, kills Microsoft, Symantec, Google, Apple, Lycos...
"...the problem stemmed from what a spokesman called a "large scale international attack on the Internet's infrastructure". Akamai said the attack was primarily aimed at the large search engines - of which it runs the three largest, Yahoo!, Google and Lycos - which meant that people were unable to access the sites.

The spokesman denied however that it was an outage and said that the Akamai name service continued to function throughout the attack which ended around two hours later.

The company is still analysing the attack and the spokesman told us it could not yet conclude whether it was directed solely at Akamai.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

There is a bit more at "The Internet Storm Center"

Akamai/Internet DNS Problems (Updated)
The problems seem to be attributable to a DDoS attack on Akamai's DNS servers, though we do not presently have the information to make a definitive assessment. According to the Akamai spokesperson, the problem was not limited to Akamai. He attributed the outage to an attack on the Internet infrastructure on a larger scale. We do not currently know of any sites that were affected by the attack without using Akamai's services.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

As information is released post-investigation from all these sources a clearer picture of exactly what happen will emerge, but now all parties are playing "close to the vest" on this incident.

TexasConspiracyNut

posted on Jun, 16 2004 @ 12:26 PM

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I noticed a problem with checkfree.com yesterday morning. It took me about half an hour to get through to pay some bills. That has never happened to me before. I dont know if it was related but I figure I should mention it.

A lot of people use that site to pay bills. I would think if that site went down for some time it would cause a big stink.