This weekend saw some huge websites and online games suffer outages due to DDoS attacks to their servers, the hacking group known as UKDrillas launched a massive Distributed Denial of Service attack against the gaming service, Wikipedia and Twitch.TV.
Whilst these attacks commonly are done to just show off the very fact they can, there are reasons to point towards these ones being for business or financial gain. Late into the first day of attacks, the twitter account that claimed to be responsible for the attacks made a public offering to Blizzard to offer their DDoS mitigation services.
So far, no details diving into how the attacks were able to generate enough traffic to carry out an attack like this we can deduce that the attack likely originated from a Linux based system, because on Sunday morning Blizzard took steps to block access for nearly all Linux based users.
As of today, Blizzard are saying things are back to normal however they have been unable to uncover who is responsible, but it likely means another attack like this to other services will be coming in weeks ahead.
Whilst this isn’t the first time these services have subjected to an attack like this, its important to remember if organisations like this who spend millions if not billions on their data centres and backend security can suffer outages like this, imagine the repercussions to small and medium sized organisations if something like this would happen. Considering 43% of cyber attacks are aimed at small businesses, its more important than ever that small businesses do what they need to ensure there to survive if they were to suffer an attack like this.
Britannia IT Services are focused on delivering outstanding Managed IT and Security services to a range of small medium sized businesses, Charities and Schools across the northwest. If you want to protect your business from the very real threats that exist on the internet, lets arrange a cup of tea and see how Britannia IT can help – Call the office on 01704 320640 or Get in Touch.
