How did the Dyn DDoS Attack occur in 2016?
Kasun wijayasekara
Associate Lead Business Analyst at DirectFN Sri Lanka (FinTech)
On October 21, 2016, a huge distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack was ongoing, causing millions of websites to become unreachable. The attack was intended exclusively at Dyn's DNS. The initial assault started at 7 a.m. on 10/21/2016. ?The organization had neutralized the assault just over 2 hours later. The attack, however, was far from over. During the day, two further attacks were made against Dyn’s DNS. (Lewis, 2017)
Introduction to DoS
As FRANKENFIELD (2022) stated, a denial-of-service (DoS) attack is a method of cyberattack in which legitimate users are prevented from accessing devices, information systems, and resources. It is frequently practiced by bombarding the targeted host or network with traffic until it collapses. DoS refers to an attack carried out by a single infected device or system, whereas DDoS refers to an attack carried out by a large number of compromised devices from around the world (distributed denial-of-service).
How does it work??
DNS is a system that connects your browser with any website you are looking for. Simply, It acts as a digital address. For instance, www.Facebook.com lives at the IP address of 69.63. 176.13. 69.63. Dyn’s DNS server is an address book and it allows your browser to find the digital location of websites.
During the DDoS attack, hackers try to flood the servers (In this case Dyn’s servers) with an enormous number of requests until the servers collapse. To do such a thing, hackers require a lot of devices. So in any DDos attack, criminals use armies of hacked devices such as computers, smartphones, printers, routers, etc. Technically, a network of hijacked devices that are used to carry out a cyberattack is known as Botnet.
According to Kochetkova (2016), hackers have flooded Dyn’s servers with requests of 1.2 terabits per second. Furthermore, she stated that the estimated damage of the attack is around $100 million. Surprisingly, hackers who are responsible for the attack have never asked for a ransom.
Why should the typical user be concerned with this?
Even though the Dyn tragedy did not directly impact you personally, that does not rule out the possibility that you were involved. As mentioned before, to carry out a DDoS attack, hackers require a lot of devices (Botnet). So there is a possibility that your devices are also a part of that botnet. In general hacked devices have two purposes. These devices serve their owners as usual and at the same time attack websites/servers according to hackers' commands. The botnet that hackers used to attack Dyn was created with the help of Mirai malware. So it is your responsibility to protect your devices.?
领英推荐
Infographic representation of DoS attack
Key takeaway
One individual cannot prevent botnets from destroying the Internet, but we can accomplish a lot as a group by refusing to support a botnet. You may begin by making your gadgets/ devices more protected to prevent Mirai and other malware from taking control of them. Botnet armies would vanish into obscurity if everybody just did it.
References
FRANKENFIELD, J., 2022. Denial-of-Service (DoS) Attack. [Online] Available at: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/denial-service-attack-dos.asp [Accessed 28 03 2022].
Kochetkova, K., 2016. How to not break the Internet. [Online] Available at: https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/attack-on-dyn-explained/13325/[Accessed 28 03 2022].
Lewis, D., 2017. The DDoS Attack Against Dyn One Year Later. [Online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davelewis/2017/10/23/the-ddos-attack-against-dyn-one-year-later/?sh=fa151b61ae9c[Accessed 28 03 2022].