What's Up With Today's Wave of Cyber Attacks?
The world is going cyber crazy! The CIA's website is currently down, cutting off CIA personnel from their email. One of the Internet's largest blogging platforms ground to a halt after a massive cyberattack this morning, and South Korean government websites are currently buckling under their own attacks. Is it the Cyberocalypse?
In the case of the CIA—probably our most immediate concern—no one knows why their site is down. A spokesman confirmed to NBC that "the CIA's website was down during the afternoon prohibiting employees from using the unclassified website and their unclassified email." (It still is inaccessible, as of this writing.) It's unclear if it was hacked. Hopefully the CIA didn't forget to renew their domain registration. That would be embarrassing.
The popular blogging platform WordPress.com was definitely attacked with a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, and it was sporadically down for the good part of Thursday morning. This is why you weren't able to access your favorite local organic cooking blog. Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg said in a statement that it was the largest attack in WordPress' six year history. And he added ominously: "We suspect it may have been politically motivated against one of our non-English blogs." [Cue James Bond Music.]
And South Korea is totally getting nailed by DDoS attacks of its own, right now. "Today's targets included the presidential office, National Intelligence Service, foreign ministry, defense ministry, national assembly and the U.S. military in Seoul," reports the AP. South Korea has issued its third-highest cyberattack alert.
Whenever anything weird happens on the Internet these days, fingers point immediately at the shadowy hacking collective Anonymous, responsible for this winter's pro-Wikileaks attacks. But it's unlikely they're involved in any of these. For one, they would have already claimed responsibility via a thousand press releases and weird YouTube videos about liberating all mankind. For two: As fearsome as their reputation is, Anonymous lacks the firepower to take down a target as hardened as the CIA, or all of Wordpress.
So, all of this Internet strangeness could be unrelated incidents, or North Korea, or some new, super powerful anti-American cyberterrorist organization laying the groundwork for Total Internet Domination. Sleep tight!