Internet security expert Bruce Schneier warned on Tuesday, Sept. 13, about the real dangers that internet could be taken down at one point by rogue nations or corporations.
Could Internet Be Taken Down?
According to SlashDot, Bruce Schneier, a well-known internet security expert, said that many major companies that provide the basic internet infrastructure are facing increased a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) attacks against them. These attacks are longer and of much larger scale than in the past.
Schneier said that a DDoS attach could be the easiest way to take a network off the Internet. Many of these DDoS attacks against internet infrastructure are designed to test the defense measures taken by companies. Schneier did not share specific details about the organizations that are under attack, but his warning is all consistent with what Verisign, the registrar for many popular top-level Internet domains, is reporting.
In case that Verisign goes down, there could be a global blackout of all e-mail addresses and websites in the most common top-level domains. Verisign publishes every quarter a PDF report detailing the latest DDoS trends.
According to the latest report, the attacks in Q2 2016 continued to become more complex, persistent and frequent. In the second quarter of this year, various forms of cyberattacks including DDoS attacks hit record heights. For instance, Web application attacks increased 26 percent over the number recorded in Q4 2015 and DDoS attacks increased 23 percent.
An average of 29 repeat DDoS attacks was reported by targets. Mega-attacks of more than 100 Gbps and multivectored attacks also increased.
The size, scale and persistence of these attacks points to state actors. It is possible that a nation's military cybercommand is preparing for a cyberwar. According to TechNewsWorld, these unknown attackers are possible trying to figure out how to take down the internet infrastructure. The likely culprits could be large nation states such as Russia or China.
The country of origin could be easily disguised. Because the exact origin of these attacks is unknown, it is difficult for potential targets to defend against them.
