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Hunt for cyber saboteurs after attacks bring down Twitter
David Gardner in Los Angeles7 Aug 2009
Fears are growing that a major cyber attack on Twitter and Facebook may be part of a larger blackmail plot targetting some of the world's most popular online social networking sites.
Internet security experts believe the attacks – which left three million Britons unable to tweet' for up to three hours – could have been a test run for a huge extortion attempt.
Facebook also suffered delays and service problems yesterday.
Analysts claim a single group or even an individual could have been behind the disruption.
There was also speculation in Washington last night that recent hacker attacks on US government sites, including the White House and the State Department, could also have been launched as target practice' for a more damaging and widespread online assault.
There were no reports of any of the websites involved receiving blackmail notes.
Twitter founder Biz Stone said in a statement that the crash appeared to be a single, massively coordinated attack'.
He added: As to the motivation behind this event, we prefer not to speculate. We are defending against this attack now and we will
continue to update our status blog as we continue to defend and later investigate.'
Facebook, Twitter and Internet search company Google were working together early today (Fri) to try and discover who caused the denial of service', which happens when millions of remotely controlled virus-infected PCs try to contact a site at once.
Security experts said criminal groups are increasingly threatening to hobble websites that refuse to pay ransom fees.
But they also admitted Thursday's problems on Twitter and Facebook could have been orchestrated by a bored teenager in his bedroom.
History would tell us that its probably the same attacker or group of attackers that is launching both attacks,' said Kevin Prince, the chief technology officer for security services provider Perimeter eSecurity.
The runaway recent success of Twitter makes it an obvious high profile target.
The worldwide number of users publishing short, 140-character messages to groups of online 'followers' grew to 44.5 million in June.
Regular celebrity tweeters include Lily Allen, Paris Hilton, Ashton Kutcher, Jonathan Ross and Philip Schofield. On Wednesday night, Paula Abdul used a tweet' to announce she was leaving the judges panel on American Idol'.
A cyber attack on Twitter would be particularly effective because it is going to be very visible to a huge population of people who have now, to some degree, become dependent on this next-generation service,' said Steve Gibson, president of Internet security firm Gibson Research Corporation.
Facebook members had problems logging in and posting to their online profiles, which the site blamed on an apparent distributed denial of service attack.
Problems continued intermittently throughout the day, but the site never crashed completely.
Graham Cluley, of web security firm Sophos, explained that a denial of service attack is like fifteen fat men trying to get through a revolving door at the same time.
It could be someone with a political or financial motivation for blackmail, or just a bored teen,' he added.
Reader views (6)
When caught, will they too be extradited to the USA?
- Frankie, Biggleswade Bedfordshire, 07/08/2009 17:10
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Still, the upside is that someone has eventually managed to shut Lilly Allen up for more than 10 minutes.
- Bob, Cheam, 07/08/2009 13:54
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that has potential to affect all of us adversely"
How could an attack on Twitter affect the vast majority of British people likw myself who don't use iy and never will. Mikw there is something wrong with folk who want to report their every thought and hiccup twenty four hours a day
- Keith Price, Luton England, 07/08/2009 12:17
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Top marks! who on earth is on twitter except egomaniacs and idiots...
- Tony, hendon, 07/08/2009 12:05
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Concert Hall
And what exactly is your rationale for condoning this burgeoning area of criminality in cyber space that has potential to affect all of us adversely.........???
- Mike, London, 07/08/2009 11:10
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Wonderful news. Hope they succeed.
- Albert Hall, hove england, 07/08/2009 10:37
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