The first, and worst, attack was resolved by 9:20 a.m. EDT on Oct. 22, but disruptions continued throughout the day. Twitter, for example, was still experiencing outages at 4 p.m.

The first, and worst, attack was resolved by 9:20 a.m. EDT on Oct. 22, but disruptions continued throughout the day. Twitter, for example, was still experiencing outages at 4 p.m.

Someone Weaponized the Internet of Things

Friday’s internet disruption could be a taste of what’s to come when nations and non-state actors stop using the web and start attacking it.

Like poor John Hurt’s character in Alien, the internet is infected with a monster that turned on its host. Instead of using the network to send propaganda videos, or dump emails, or destroy centrifuges, Friday’s attack harnessed thousands of connected devices to take down parts of the internet itself.

The basic pattern of a DDoS attack is nothing new: an attacker uses malware to recruit internet-connected computers into a globe-girdling robot army, which upon command overwhelm their target with unwanted requests. What’s changing is the tremendous growth in the Internet of Things, or IOT, the devices — from PCs to home routers to smart refrigerators — that we attach to the net. Far too many of these are installed with widely known factory-default passwords or other vulnerabilities, making them easy recruits for bot armies.

“The volume of DDoS attacks has more than doubled over the last 18 months. It’s now approaching 650 gigabytes a second. That’s only possible because they’ve been recruiting IOT devices,” said one government official with direct knowledge of the attack. “We need to have a deliberative conversation about baking in security as much as possible into Internet of Things devices.”

On Friday, at a signal from an as-yet-unknown party, thousands of internet-connected devices began sending waves of data at Dyn, one of the domain name server, or DNS, companies that link the internet’s backbone to the human-readable web. Hundreds of websites, including Twitter, the New York Times, Reddit and Amazon, went down for hours.

And yet this is likely just prelude to even larger attacks, said Chris Finan, a former White House cybersecurity advisor who now runs Manifold Technology, a cybersecurity firm.

“The way that they directed this at core infrastructure, there’s no reason they couldn’t scale this to a much broader attack,” Finan said. “The websites that they have taken offline today is still not the majority of what business uses in the U.S. If this was broadened, it could be crippling to businesses.”

Finan, who served from 2011-12 as the White House’s director for cybersecurity legislation and policy, said DNS vulnerabilities had always been “a concern.” But the overwhelming attacks made possible by huge sales of poorly secured IOT devices? “That is not the sort of thing that was appreciated as a near-term risk,” he said.

But the past month has brought warnings that this kind of thing was coming. In September, a record-breaking DDoS attack took down the website of cybersecurity researcher Brian Krebs. On Oct. 14, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning that more such were coming. Cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier even wrote about signs that someone — perhaps even a nation-state — was systematically probing for ways to take down the internet.

The good news is that internet service providers are learning to work with some of the big cloud-service companies to block the bots and restore access. “Clouds see more of the traffic” and can figure out where it’s coming from, the officials said. “That doesn’t mean [the attackers] won’t pick some new address range.”

In other words, service providers and bots are in trench warfare.

A new kind of cyberwar

The internet has long been a tool of groups seeking to sow discord or further their security interests. Think of the Islamic State, whose YouTube propaganda videos helped take Mosul with far fewer attackers than defenders. Or of Russia, who orchestrated the publication of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee in an attempt to influence the U.S. election. Or even of the Stuxnet worm that destroyed Iranian centrifuges.

But worrisome as those activities all may be to the U.S. security establishment, they all still respect the fundamental system; they’re using the internet, not attacking it. It’s the latter that concerns the director of the U.S. National Security Agency, Adm. Mike Rogers.

“What happens when non-state actors stop viewing the internet, the World Wide Web, as a communication mechanism, as a mechanism to coordinate, as a mechanism to generate revenue, as a mechanism to spread their ideology and recruit, and they start viewing it as a weapon system?” Rogers said in Washington, D.C., last month.

Rogers was focused on non-state actors, like ISIS, that have little to “no interest in sustaining the status quo,” unlike nation-states that believe “there’s some benefit from the broad structures we’ve put in place to ensure stability over time.”

On Friday, NBC News cited a senior intelligence official as saying that the attack did not appear to be state-sponsored. yet others speculated that Russia was conducting a test run for disrupting Americans’ access to news on election day.

The FBI will head up the investigation into exactly what happened, and they have not yet named a culprit and no hard evidence has come to let yet naming an actor.

The official who spoke with Defense One said it had hallmarks of a government-sponsored effort.

“The comprehensiveness of this and the coordination of this indicates that this is probably nation-state backed, whether they are doing this themselves or someone else is doing it is unclear,” said the current official. “If you ask me to bet, I give it a 55 to 60 percent chance” it was Russia. “But there are other countries that would love to inflame the relationship between Russia and the United States and this is the perfect way to do that.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.