Friday, August 07, 2009

Twitter under attack-should we be worried?

So twitter yesterday found itself under cyber attack?

According to this report in the FT this morning

it was hit by a denial-of-service attack, in which thousands of personal computers attempt simultaneous connections, slowing the target site’s response to a virtual standstill.
adding that

The outages once again underscored the fragility of internet communications at a time when Google, Amazon and others are touting the advantages of moving corporate work into the so-called cloud, where data and programs are accessible only via remote connections.


Meanwhile accoridng to the New York Times,it may be the continuing tensions between Russia and Georgia which may be to blame

Bill Woodcock, research director of the Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit technical organization that tracks Internet traffic, said the attack was an extension of the conflict between Russia and Georgia.
It was not clear who initiated the attack, Mr. Woodcock said, but it was likely that “one side put up propaganda, the other side figured this out and is attacking them.” He said he found evidence that the attacks had originated from the Abkhazia region, a territory on the Black Sea disputed between Russia and Georgia.

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