Twitter Denial-of-Service Attack

Millions of Twitter Users Stand Around Bored & Aimless as Micro Blog Site Gets Hit With Massive Distributed DoS Attack

Twitter is being hit by a massive distributed denial-of-service attack making the micro-blogging service unavailable for millions of users around the world.

A denial of service attack occurs when computers bombard a website with requests for information. Typically hackers can control thousands of innocent users' computers centrally and command them to visit a site that they wish to flood with traffic - making it impossible for other internet users to get through. It's a bit like 15 fat men trying to get through a revolving door at the same time - nothing can move.

In the meantime, micro-bloggers around the world are likely to be left twiddling their thumbs.

Graham Cluely, (pictured) Technology Consultant at anti-virus and security company Sophos, told IrishDev.com, "You know, I wonder how many people thought this morning that their IT department had deliberately blocked Twitter because of concern that staff were wasting too much time tweeting about their first cup of coffee of the day or the latest news about that Vanessa Hudgens picture."

"The fact is, however, it wasn't the system administrator blocking access to your favourite social networking site, but hackers disrupting the service instead. Don't underestimate the impact an attack like this can have, by the way. Twitter isn't just about meaningless piffle (although there's a fair bit of that). Companies are using it to keep in touch with their customer base, and consumers take advantage of the site's intimacy to get an answer from large companies that are discovering how to have a "human face" online."

Twitter is reporting on its blog that the attack is continuing and the important issue right now is how well Twitter can defend itself against it.

Cluely concludes, "The question on my mind is - why would someone want to attack Twitter? I can't imagine it's a commerical competitor of theirs, but it could be someone with a financial motivation (blackmail?) or a teenager in a back bedroom with access to an awfully large botnet."

IrishDev.com's Barry Alistair said, "Unfortunately, people are always going to take a stab at global brands such as Twitter, especially when crazy people are willing to reward such acts (read more here and here). Irish web companies need to protect themselves and can hear David Rook, a web security expert with Realex Payments discuss ways to be secure with web services in his special presentation at the Irish Software Show, epicenter 2009 (http://epicenter.ie) in August."

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