I’m a little late to the party – but let’s be honest, my audience is small and very laid back in how quickly they catch up with these posts – so I wanted write down a few thoughts about last week’s DDoS attack on Dyn. Especially since my last post was about domain names!
A DDoS is basically like when 10 people talk to you at once. I like to think of it like this – also, while I would not recommend going back in time and paying full price in the theater to see this movie it is worth putting in your Netflix queue. Hey, Netflix was also affected by last week’s attack! (here’s a link to a Variety article that explains DD0S – or distributed denial of service attacks more clearly than I am, if you want to jump ship right now).
Actually, Wikipedia uses the analogy of fake customers crowding the doorway of your shop, so legitimate customers can’t get in. Maybe that is a better way to think of it.
Point is, hackers made too many requests at once to some very popular websites and that is why the web servers weren’t able to send you, a legitimate visitor, the files you requested in order for you to view the site.
The really interesting thing is we are hearing they did this by utilizing internet connected “things.” Stuff like your router or your closed circuit tv.
It’s a great reminder to change the set password your router comes with. And now that I think about it, I think the next post will be about routers for the casual user – care, feeding, socialization, that sort of thing. Check back soon, and thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!
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