'Massive attack' strikes websites

Source: BBC

High-profile websites including Google, Facebook and Twitter have been targeted by hackers in what is described as a "massively co-ordinated attack".

Other sites such as the blogging platform Live Journal were also reportedly targeted.

<snip>

"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.


Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8189162.stm

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Earlier, related Latest Breaking News thread:
Twitter Says Message Site Is Unavailable After `Denial of Service' Attack

Nearly lost my strawberry crop on Farmville. :rofl:

we lead equally exciting lives. :rofl:

(I'm embarrassed I even know about it.)
But somebody has been messing with my goats.

There's Farm Town and Farmville

my cows are safe and now I have a chicken also!

Unless they are chocolate. :D

/Farmville and Farm Town addict

I'm only a nimble farmer, lol , so can't get pigs yet. What happens to those - just sell them at the market ?

:spray:

:rofl:

Since you have some spare time away from Farmville, come on over. Beer is on me.

Are we talking about an action by the Hack-Sys of Evil? :shrug:

n/t

Source: Computer Weekly

Twitter was downed by a http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/08/06/237223/twitter-down-after-dos-attack.htm">DoS attack yesterday and took nearly three hours to restore services after it experienced connectivity problems.

Business and other users were unable to access the microblogging site for at least 90 minutes as Twitter scrambled to deal with the problem.

Twitter and other companies including Facebook companies were victims of "a single, massively co-ordinated attack," according to blog post by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.

Facebook encountered network issues related to an apparent DoS attack that resulted in degraded service for some users, the company said in a statement.

Both Twitter and Facebook emphasised that no user data was at risk as unknown attackers flooded the sites with requests to block legitimate users.

Twitter is working with other companies to investigate the attack.

More: http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/08/07/237226/twitter-and-facebook-victims-of-a-massively-co-ordinated.htm

:rofl:

They should have DDOS attacks every week. Pretty soon offices will be down to 10 percent of their former employment levels. Less executives means more profit for the executives they still have.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The blogger believed to be the target of the "denial-of-service" attack that brought down Twitter Thursday has told CNN the cyber assault was politically motivated and timed to coincide with the one year anniversary of the Russia-Georgia conflict.

"Cyxymu" has identified himself to CNN as "George," and the owner of the Twitter, Facebook and LiveJournal accounts named by Facebook's security officer as being the target of a co-ordinated online attack.

George told CNN in an email his username is "the name of my home town, the capital of Apkhazia (Sokhumi) written in Russian and typed in Latin letters."

He confirmed he is 34 years old and based in Tblisi, Georgia, but declined to give further information which may reveal his identity

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/07/russia.georgia.twitter.attack/">Read more

BTW, Twitter was working well a couple of minutes ago.

People can't spam my Facebook page at all, since I have a whitelist of people who can say anything on most of it, and you can't really jam an individual's Twitter since all you're doing is making your own posts. Taking down the sites wholesale is about the only effective way to silence someone on them (short of compromising their accounts).

view event has having "victims."

Many people worldwide relied on Twitter for that coverage. :hi:

Or it was a strangely timed coincidence. A virus alert came up on yesterday morning. Hubby (who is a computer geek) said it looked like AVG cleaned it up. Yesterday, I get a call from my daughter, who was in tears. The computer had slowed to a halt, AVG detected another virus (Sheur2.AURL) and pop-up windows were coming up with every concievable advertisement.

I have Cyberpatrol on, so the adult ads didn't display to her (she's 16yo). I had her turn the machine off and I researched at work how to disinfect from the Sheur2 monster. I checked the AVG log (1 instance of Sheur2), downloaded MalwareBytes (found 64 items infected), and followed the instructions on their forum. I downloaded HijackThis, but didn't try to post the log to their forum yet.

The Cyberpatrol log reads fine until Monday. On Monday, there was a slight increase in website activity (a doubling - to almost 4000 sites touched). Then yesterday, the log reads 115,393 sites. No wonder it was pegged at 100% utilization.

Since disinfecting, I've run all the checkers again, AND gone back out to the internet. All scans show 0 infections and my trip to the internet to 1 site, displayed only 1 site in CyberPatrol. Only problem is it's still running slow. Maybe I'll get the HijackThis log posted today to see what they say.

I'm looking at Zone Alarm as the next install. Don't know if that would protect from something like the Sheur2 trojan or not.

I would have enjoyed the adult ads.

Maybe that's the difference between boys and girls though. :shrug:

when I do a search I have to enter a code word.

and it has been infected with a virus -- i don't know if it's this virus.

Some people get truly addicted to that stuff.

Web attack blogger blames Russia,

A blogger who was targeted in a co-ordinated attack against websites such as Facebook and Twitter has told the BBC he blames Russia for the assault.

The pro-Georgian blogger, known as Cyxymu, said he had been targeted for "telling the truth about the Russian-Georgian war" in his writings.

>

Despite the blogger's claims, security researchers say there is "no suggestion the attack was state-endorsed".

Google, Facebook and blogging platform Live Journal - all sites where Cyxymu had accounts - were also affected.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8190786.stm

That's his 15 minutes up.

If not, I'm not interested.