Did the East Coast just suffer a massive cyberattack?
Was your internet service acting strange on Friday morning?
Don鈥檛 worry, it鈥檚 not your computer.
A series of websites, including Spotify, Twitter, PayPal, GrubHub, Pintrest, Reddit, Etsy, Yelp, CNN, and Netflix, were inaccessible to internet users across the globe Friday morning, specifically web surfers on the United States鈥� East and West Coasts and in Europe.
The outages were the result of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Dyn, a Domain Name Server (DNS) provider. Dyn has , but the source of the hack is still unknown. Dyn announced later Friday morning that it had resolved the problems.
So what exactly is a DNS?聽
These servers are the equivalent of an internet phone book, holding a directory of domain names. Each time a web surfer searches for a web address via a domain name, the internet provider instantaneously searches that website鈥檚 DNS provider, which then instantaneously translates the domain name into a computer-friendly IP address.聽
In other words, if it weren鈥檛 for DNS, internet users would have to for a site (such as 216.168.224.70) instead of the simple domain name (such as csmonitor.com).聽
And a DDoS attack effectively breaks down a server鈥檚 searching capabilities by overloading a system with server requests.聽
鈥淚n a DDoS attack, hackers will often use infected computers to create a flood of traffic originating from many different sources, potentially thousands or even hundreds of thousands,鈥� . 鈥淏y using all of the infected computers, a hacker can effectively circumvent any blocks that might be put on a single IP address. It also makes it harder to identify a legitimate request compared to one coming from an attacker.鈥澛�
Friday鈥檚 hack comes at a time when Americans have a heightened fear of cyberattacks. Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, as well as technical and election experts, are questioning the potential of a nationwide hack on the US voting system come Nov. 8.聽
But Jeff Stone, a reporter with the Monitor鈥檚 Passcode, attended an event at Washington鈥檚 Atlantic Council Wednesday, and says experts aren鈥檛 worried about a voting hack on Election Day.
鈥淢ost voting machines in most states do not connect to the internet, therefore it would take an extraordinary attack on polling places to actually compromise voting results. It would require physically tampering with machines, and vast manpower,鈥� he wrote.聽
The White House Press Secretary says the Department of Homeland Security is investigating Friday鈥檚 DDoS attack.聽
