Our Success is in our members who value our strength as a valued community.
Forum Statistics
Forums65
Topics76,352
Posts1,033,281
Members14,560
Most Online16,551
Feb 2nd, 2024
Who's Online Now
7 members (3 invisible), 8,238 guests, and 440 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Top Posters
sunnyside 45,164
MattLFC 22,315
Mark 21,269
granny 17,788
_Ste_ 16,345
Newest Members
Kalena1962, rattus, Lisrush, Emotecreative, ArranGirl13
14,560 Registered Users
New General Forums
New Wirral History
Tall Brick Chimneys
by diggingdeeper - 16th Mar 2024 11:56am
D.I.Y. / Building Shop
by mharford91 - 3rd Mar 2024 8:53pm
1970's Murder in Central Park, Wallasey
by cutespam - 4th Aug 2018 10:28am
Old Hall in Higher Bebington
by Rhoobarb - 25th May 2010 5:55pm
Oleo Works
by Ducko - 14th May 2008 3:09pm
Top Posters(30 Days)
granny 14
casper 13
bri445 4
Topic Replies
What song are you listening to?
by diggingdeeper - 28th Mar 2024 6:06pm
Facial recognition coming in supermarkets?
by diggingdeeper - 27th Mar 2024 3:50pm
Bolts at Bebington Road
by diggingdeeper - 27th Mar 2024 2:33am
Hot Spot Chippie Broadway
by Excoriator - 26th Mar 2024 7:57pm
Tall Brick Chimneys
by diggingdeeper - 26th Mar 2024 5:43pm
Lost river (Well, brook really)
by diggingdeeper - 26th Mar 2024 3:09am
Old Hall in Higher Bebington
by diggingdeeper - 24th Mar 2024 5:58pm
Netflix 3 Body Problem.
by BultacoAstro - 22nd Mar 2024 8:04am
Wisper electric bike. 36v .
by Dilly - 21st Mar 2024 7:36pm
March
M T W T F S S
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Top Likes Received (30 Days)
Kylix 1
cools 1
Top Likes Received
bert1 14
Mark 4
granny 3
casper 3
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
_
_jase_
Unregistered
_jase_
Unregistered
_
'Massive attack' strikes websites



High-profile websites including Google, Facebook and Twitter have been targeted by hackers in what is described as a "massively co-ordinated attack".
[Linked Image]
Reports suggest the strike may have been aimed at a single user, pro-Georgian blogger known as Cyxymu.

Twitter was taken offline for more than two hours whilst Facebook's service was "degraded", according to the firms.

Google said it had defended its sites and was now working with the other firms to investigate the attack.

"Google systems prevented substantive impact to our services," the company said in a statement.

The company has not confirmed which services were targeted in the attack, but it is thought that its e-mail service Gmail and and video site YouTube were under fire.

"We are aware that a handful of non-Google sites were impacted by [an]... attack this morning, and are in contact with some affected companies to help investigate this attack," the company said.

Other sites such as blogging platform Live Journal were also reportedly targeted in the attack on Thursday.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote on its own blog: "Twitter has been working closely with other companies and services affected by what appears to be a single, massively co-ordinated attack."

He said that the motivation for the attack was unclear and that the company would "prefer not to speculate".

However, Max Kelly, chief security officer at Facebook, told technology website CNET News that the attack was a strike targeted at a Georgian blogger known as Cyxymu.

"It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him to keep his voice from being heard," he told the website.

Writing on his blog, Graham Cluley of security firm Sophos said: "This raises the astonishing thought that a vendetta against a single user caused Twitter to crumble, forcing us to ask serious questions about the site's fragility."

Spam attack

The popular sites were subject to a so-called denial-of-service (DOS) attacks on Thursday, the companies believe.

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

"Attacks such as this are malicious efforts orchestrated to disrupt and make unavailable services such as online banks, credit card payment gateways, and in this case, Twitter for intended customers or users," wrote Mr Stone.

These often use networks of computers - known as botnets -under the control of hackers.

The strategy is often employed by protestors against, for example, government websites, said Roger Thompson, chief research officer at security firm AVG.

"Those behind this latest attack may be using it as a means of highlighting the vulnerability of the sites we take for granted.

"There is no profit to be made from DOS and those who do carry out an attack like this will lose their botnet, showing there is no gain to be had."

Some unconfirmed reports have suggested that it was not a DOS attack but the result of a spam campaign containing links to Cyxymu's web pages on the various affected services.

Archived pages on Cyxymu's blog claim he was victim to this sort of attack, known as a "Joe Job".

But Mr Cluley said he didn't think that was a likely scenario. "Most people wouldn't have bothered clicking on the link," he wrote.

"However, I think it is possible that the spam campaign was either run alongside the denial-of-service from compromised computers around the world, or that someone who wasn't responsible for the Joe Job decided to wreak revenge on whoever they believed to have spammed them (and they might have imagined it was Cyxymu) by launching a DOS from their botnet."

Protest tool

All of the affected services were keen to stress that user's data had not been put at risk in the attacks.

"Please note that no user data was compromised in this attack," wrote Twitter's Biz Stone.

"This activity is about saturating a service with so many requests that it cannot respond to legitimate requests thereby denying service to intended customers or users."

Twitter has had a meteoric rise since its launch in 2006.

A ComScore study suggests that Twitter had around 45 million users worldwide as of June 2009.

However, as many users interact with the service through mobile phones or third-party software, the actual number of users is likely to be higher.

However, that pales in comparison to Facebook, which claims to have 250m active users worldwide.

Both recently garnered worldwide attention when they were used by Iranians to co-ordinate demonstrations following the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president.

Many protesters believed there was electoral fraud and opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi should have won.

Twitter chose to delay upgrade work during the protests to allow communication to continue.

In a BBC interview, co-founder Evan Williams denied the move had been a response to a US state department request.



THE BBC.CO.UK

Google Ads
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 261
Addict
Offline
Addict
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 261
"Massive Attack" strike websites??? I used to think thier music was good but if this is what they get up to these days i'll buy no more of thier C.D's

Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 12,369
Likes: 1
Wiki Master
Offline
Wiki Master
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 12,369
Likes: 1
Originally Posted by stegga
"Massive Attack" strike websites??? I used to think thier music was good but if this is what they get up to these days i'll buy no more of thier C.D's

raftl thats what I thought


Autowirral.co.uk - The Northwest's Biggest forum of Motoring Enthusiasts.
Cruisewirral.com - The Northwest's Biggest forum of Modified Car Enthusiasts.
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 5,683
Wiki Guide
Offline
Wiki Guide
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 5,683
^ Same here!

I have no doubt that shitty 4chan website was behind it.


"C20 LET bang"
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 22,315
Wiki Master
Offline
Wiki Master
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 22,315
I hate DDoS'ers with a passion and hope they all rot in hell when they pass onto the next world.

"waits for my networks to get raped"

Top notch DoS filtering and mitigation is the key to success in this world.

grin

Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,990
Are you SoNutz?
Forum Master
Offline
Are you SoNutz?
Forum Master
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,990
I used to get DDOS of IRC networks cause idiots wanted channels so everyone who was innocent on the channel got knocked off there connection im going back years when we had dial up connections but people where stupid and done it from there pc,s back then with stupid scripts in mIRC and nine time out of ten they had Windows 98 with netbieu open so couple of tricks and they didnt come back on line.. a certain con\con in the Run in the Startup folder.. smile


Lee Mills

Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 5,683
Wiki Guide
Offline
Wiki Guide
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 5,683
Originally Posted by MattLFC
I hate DDoS'ers with a passion and hope they all rot in hell when they pass onto the next world.


I doubt they're worth anymore to the human race than insects. You can picture the type of person - 20 - 30, male, lives with parents, etc. I don't understand the mentality behind it.


"C20 LET bang"

Moderated by  Mark 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Random Wirral Images

Click to View Topic.
Newest Topics
Facial recognition coming in supermarkets?
by Excoriator - 27th Mar 2024 10:52am
Hot Spot Chippie Broadway
by Excoriator - 26th Mar 2024 7:57pm
Bolts at Bebington Road
by Excoriator - 23rd Mar 2024 9:48am
Netflix 3 Body Problem.
by BultacoAstro - 22nd Mar 2024 8:04am
Tall Brick Chimneys
by diggingdeeper - 16th Mar 2024 11:56am
For Sale & Free
Wisper electric bike. 36v .
by Dilly - 21st Mar 2024 7:36pm
This is Elvis
by GingerTom - 17th Mar 2024 2:37pm
Member Spotlight
diggingdeeper
diggingdeeper
Wirral
Posts: 14,344
Joined: July 2008
Today's Birthdays
There are no members with birthdays on this day.
New Wirral Info
Facial recognition coming in supermarkets?
by Excoriator - 27th Mar 2024 10:52am
Hot Spot Chippie Broadway
by Excoriator - 26th Mar 2024 7:57pm
Bolts at Bebington Road
by Excoriator - 23rd Mar 2024 9:48am
Get your Money Tree ready
by keef666 - 22nd Mar 2023 12:27pm
Restaurant/pub with outdoor seating - Bromborough
by CarterUSM - 7th Aug 2020 7:59pm
News : New Topics
Gaza
by diggingdeeper - 29th Oct 2023 9:28am
Lost river (Well, brook really)
by Excoriator - 10th Sep 2019 8:50am
New Enthusiast Forums
Netflix 3 Body Problem.
by BultacoAstro - 22nd Mar 2024 8:04am
Xbox
by TudorBlue - 3rd Mar 2024 8:48pm
Wiper mechanism needed
by Peter0787 - 20th Feb 2024 4:07pm
What song are you listening to?
by - 24th Jun 2007 9:06am
Popular Topics(Views)
5,069,774 WIKI WALK CHAT
4,013,848 Spotted!
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5