(Aug 6, 2009): "Cyber Attack Takes Twitter Offline" (Video, ITN News)

[CGP]

YouTube - Cyber attack takes Twitter offline

[StacyinBoston]

Yeah, what a pain in the ass that was!

Facebook was attacked too!:eek:

[CGP]

Yeah, what a pain in the ass that was!

Facebook was attacked too!:eek:

Everything ok now?

What happened? Have they identified who did it?

[Meg]

Facebook, Twitter and Livejournal! Were these people trying to give me a heart attack!:eek: Thank goodness I missed it all!

[CGP]

Is twitter down again?

[joeysky18]

Is twitter down again?

I can't log in as well. Page Load Error.

[Spang]

TweetDeck is working fine.

[RE:]

They are probably installing software to watch us all...LOOK OUT!!:eek:

(I'm only half kidding;))

[VotingHillary]

Awwww, you mean folks actually had to talk with each other FACE-TO-FACE? :rotfl:

sorry, just so indifferent to Twitter, MySpace, Facebook...etc.

[CGP]

Twitter DDoS Attack Reminds Us to Reinforce Safe Web Habits (http://www.pcworld.com/article/169803/twitter_ddos_attack.html)
(PC World, 8/6/09)


Today, Facebook, LiveJournal, and most visibly Twitter were sabotaged by a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack. What’s not clear is exactly why these sites were targeted. Current speculation is that the Koobface worm, whose name is a Facebook anagram, may be responsible for the attacks. A fresh wave of infections from a new variant of the worm supports this possibility. Let this serve as a warning that we can never remind our users too often about safe surfing practices.

First, trust your instincts. If you get an email message or a Facebook wall posting from a friend that contains a file or link, and their language seems uncharacteristic, it’s likely to be a virus. Koobface lures you in by appearing to be a video posted by a friend. When the link is clicked, it takes you to a page which then tells you to update to the latest version of Adobe Flash. When you consent to the update, you install the worm. The worm then propagates by posting the link on your friends’ Facebook walls. The worm can also propagate using Twitter, tweeting “My Home Video J” followed by a random exclamation and a link that installs the worm on its victims computers.

Be aware of fake antivirus/antispyware software. If you get a pop-up message that appears to be a program claiming to scan your computer for viruses, be wary. Unless you recognize it as the behavior of your installed anti-malware, it’s almost certainly malware trying to infect your computer. The safest way to back out of this situation is to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and open the Task Manager to end the offending task.

Trust no one. Don’t install applications from untrusted sources. Be wary of opening unanticipated attachments even from people you know. Never assume that an email that appears to be from a trusted source is genuine. Your bank will never email you a link to confirm your account information.

Update your system! Keeping Windows, your browser, and your anti-malware software up-to-date is critical to keeping your system free from malware.

Scan your system! Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a free and effective anti-malware app that I use and recommend.

Be careful out there! My twitter followers depend on it.

[CGP]

Twitter Under Attack (http://mhutch.blogspot.com/2009/08/twitter-under-attack.html)
(Hutch Report Blog, 8/6/09)


Love it or hate it, but one thing is for certain and that is Twitter has become a regular part of the daily lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world. Earlier today, a person or group of people hit Twitter with a denial of service attack which caused headaches for the company and millions of users worldwide. By noon, I started to notice that Twitter service was getting back to normal, but it was responding extremely slow.

Denial of service attacks have been around for a long time on the Internet. Even Internet giants Yahoo and Google must work tirelessly to prevent these types of attacks because it only takes a handful of devious people to cause their services to grind to a halt. Put simply, a denial of service attack against an Internet website occurs when a person or group of people send more packets of content to the host server than that server is capable of handling. If the denial of service attackers are successful, host servers just give up and then shutdown.

Twitter has become a big target of Internet hackers not only in the United States, but also around the world. In recent months, Twitter was one of the few places where citizen of Iran could obtain real-time information about what was happening during protests in that country. That is why it would not surprise me if the Iranian government was somehow involved in the denial of service attacks against Twitter today. Of course, it does not take a powerful government to bring down a website like Twitter. A group of smart high school students with a few laptop computers could do the same thing.

It is unlikely that we will ever learn exactly what happened to Twitter this morning because most companies do not want to draw attention to weaknesses in their computer systems for obvious reasons. However, the act of bringing down servers via a denial of service attack is not a new one. Even as companies work tirelessly to increase the security of their servers to protect them from denial of service attacks, there are always smart people in the world that will find holes in that security, which allow them to get back in and create havoc not only for that company, but also for the computer users that depend on them.

[foxyladi]

I can't log in as well. Page Load Error.

same here[-X