Bruce Schneier, a fellow at Harvard and the CIO of a security company for IBM (Resilient) has stated that a “nations military has been probing and attacking major companies that provide the basic infrastructure of the internet” (Schneier, 2016). These attacks are carried out through distributed denial-of-service-attacks (DDoS), the most common form of attacks. DDoS attacks to put it simply is flooding or blasting the bandwidths or resources of another’s system. What is interesting about these attacks as Dr. Schneier pointed out is that these attacks seemed to be probing the systems of companies rather than taking them out. These attacks were aimed to find out the defense capabilities of these systems in order to potentially carry out one coordinated attack.
As many of you might know these DDoS attacks are quite common and might be nothing new. But what is troublesome as Dr. Schneier pointed out is the fact that these DDoS attacks are “much more complex, frequent and more persistent than ever before” (Schneier, 2016). These attacks are too strong to be simply carried out by activists, anarchists or criminals and it seems to be a nation state that is coordinating DDoS attacks. The country of origin is unclear, some people are seeing data that suggests it is coming from China. However, it is very easy to disguise the identity of the attacks so it is dangerous to be making assumptions.
Verisign is an American internet company that provides a diverse array of network infrastructures, they also report quarterly DDoS figures. They stated that in Q1 of 2016 alone the amount of attacks increased by over 111% and that the average attack size increased by 182% (Verisign, 2016). These are some truly alarming figures, the rise in DDoS attacks have always been in double digits growth but never in triple digit growth.
The effects that taking down the internet might have on nation states and businesses is unimaginable. Some companies that completely depend on the internet like Uber, AirBnb and Facebook might see some rough times ahead. To many it may seem that taking down the internet is impossible as there are too many independent internet service providers to take down at once, and that simply said no one has enough power to coordinate one attack. What do you think? Who do you think is behind these attacks? What is their mission? and how could this disrupt complete industries/companies/social infrastructures?
Bibliography
Schneier, B. (2016, 09 13). Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet. Retrieved from Schneier on Security: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/09/someone_is_lear.html
Verisign. (2016, 05 25). Verisign Q1 2016 DDoS Trends: Attack Activity Increases 111 Percent Year Over Year. Retrieved from CircleID: http://www.circleid.com/posts/20160525_ddos_trends_attack_activity_increases_111_percent_year_over_year/
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