Last Friday's cyberattack was launched by a group called the New World Hackers. Members of this group claimed responsibility for the attack via Twitter, but experts say IoT devices and us are much to be blamed for the mass-scale DDoS attack as well.
When the cyberattack was launched, it initially only affected the eastern United States. Later, however, users from Europe and Asia also reported problems when connecting to dozens of major websites, crippling well-known sites such as Amazon, Netflix, Twitter, Skype and many more for hours at a time.
According to the website News.com, authorities did not receive any communications from the attackers and did not know who was responsible. The article further stated that a senior U.S. intelligence officer told American Broadcaster NBC that authorities do not believe the attack was state sponsored. Instead, they are identifying it as a case of "internet vandalism".
Hours after the attack (no specific time was mentioned), a group called the New World Hackers tweeted a message at Twitter claiming that they are responsible for the attack. The group has in the past claimed responsibilities for similar attacks against sites including ESPNFantasySports.com in September and the BBC on December 31.
Authorities stated that the attacks were carried through the "Internet of Things". The group is said to have used publicly available source to assemble a bot-net army of internet-enabled devices or IoT and then directed those devices to send massive waves of junk requests to a DNS provider.
But according to an article written at Fortune, companies with such sloppy security standards were much to blame for making the attack possible. IoT devices such as printers and appliances connected to the internet created a hole for hackers such as the New World Hackers to disrupt the internet highway.
The Fortune article further stated that part of the responsibility should also lie with the lawmakers and regulators who have failed to create a safety system to account for the IoT era we are now living in. And lastly, consumer must also secure the internet-connected devices, because they are not only endangering themselves but also the Internet as well.
