Massive DDoS attack renders major internet websites down

A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against DynDNS, a major DNS provider, is causing major internet websites to go down. Reportedly, Twitter, Spotify, SoundCloud, AirBnB, New York Times and other popular internet properties have been affected by this attack.

A distributed denial of service (DDoS ) essentialy works like this. The attacking party will bombard the receiver with innumerable packets eventually slowing it down to a sluggish pace. In this case, the receivers were Dyn’s DNS Servers. DNS stands for Domain Name System and is the central tool which resolves IP addresses into human readable domain names.

Although, there is no confirmed news on who are the attackers and the whole internet is busy speculating the people behind it. But one thing everybody is sure of is that the attackers are strong and they were able to exploit a service used by popular internet properties.

Scott Hilton, EVP, Products at Dyn has issued a press statement:

“This morning, October 21, Dyn received a global DDoS attack on our Managed DNS infrastructure in the east coast of the United States. DNS traffic resolved from east coast name server locations are experiencing a service degradation or intermittent interruption during this time. Updates will be posted as information becomes available.

Upon recognition, active mitigation protocols were initiated and have been working to resolve the issues.
Customers with questions or concerns are encouraged to check our status page for updates and reach out to our Technical Support Team.”

According to reports, the Dyn service is restored and all internet websites should open normally now.