How The Internet can be Turned off of Worldwide
How The Internet can be Turned off of Worldwide
The global Internet crisis Fastly could be a sign of what is to come. Why did all these sites shut down – and what is the CDN anyway, with the Internet cut off Fastly?
On the morning of June 8, for an hour, dozens of popular websites in the world went offline. Offline sites included Amazon, Reddit, PayPal, Spotify, the Guardian, The New York Times,s, and the UK government website, gov.UK. Together, these websites control hundreds of millions of users.
Modern websites often contain many elements, including images, videos,s, and so on. Speed improvements via CDNs can be significant when all of these are combined.
This issue was quickly traced to Fastly, a cloud computing company that provides content delivery networks to affected websites.
A content delivery network, primarily designed to reduce performance bottlenecks, is a system of computers or servers that stores copies of data across different parts of the network. In the event of a crash, the websites it supports will not recover their data and will have to go offline.
The shutdown of the Fastly content delivery network appears to be due to an internal software bug created by one of their customers. Still, although the problem was resolved within an hour, it is estimated that this cost Costly global customers hundreds of millions of dollars.
This shows the fragility of the Internet, which is routed through fewer channels. When one of those core channels fails, the so-called “break-even point” results are dramatic, disruptive, and unbelievable.
This is not a loss for cybercriminals, as they know that a targeted hack can simultaneously destroy or violate several organizations. If we want to prevent another global collapse on the Internet, this time caused by criminals, not code, we urgently need to address this significant vulnerability.
Warning signs
Since this happened immediately after the ransomware attack on the Colonial Oil Pipeline in the United States. That the Fastly outage could be the result of a cyber attack.
CDNs typically operate globally to ensure the fast delivery of content to everyone worldwide.
It is easy to understand why. Using an analysis of more than 4,000 ransomware attacks, my research has shown that in large-scale cyberattacks that target organizations, ransomware gangs have widespread acceleration rather than businesses That manage to hack the get paid.
These attacks exploit vulnerabilities from remote operating settings. But there has also been a noticeable shift in attacks on organizations like Fastly that provide core services to other organizations and their customers.
Image: The graph shows the increase in cyber attacks on several service organizations. Cyber attacks on Fastly similar operating systems have increased dramatically since 2019. David S. Wall, the author, presented.
CDN is a service that allows popular websites to maintain copies of their pages that are closer to their customers.
This process is unlikely to stop. Ransomware has become a complex billion-dollar business, and an increasingly professional ecosystem backs attackers motivated and supported by the high performance generated in such attacks.
The Verizon 2020 report found that 86% of hacks were financially motivated, while less than 10% were spying.
Two major hacks targeting organizations with access to thousands of other organizations have recently shown how fragile centralized Internet systems are. SolarWinds and Microsoft Exchange Server hacks, which occurred in early 2020 and early 2021, respectively, violated tens of thousands of companies. Both have been blamed on government-backed hackers instead of ransomware gangs.
But cybercriminals have also deliberately targeted multiple service providers and key supply chains to enhance their effectiveness and thus repay their hacks. Blackbaud, Accellion, and other key online service providers have fallen victim to such attacks.
Centralize the Internet
These specific hackers are partly the result of an attempt to centralize online services, which may be effective for businesses but is contrary to the Internet’s founding principles.
The initial appeal of the Internet was that it was a distributed network designed to withstand attacks and censorship.
The initial appeal of the Internet was that it was a distributed network designed to withstand attacks and censorship. When used for public use in the early 1990s, the Internet became popular for commerce and was known as the beacon of freedom of expression. But market logic, instead of freedom of expression, has driven developments from the earliest days.
Today, cloud computing companies and multiple service providers manage a large portion of Internet traffic, causing disruptions at various points where Internet flows can be accidentally or intentionally disrupted. Even a simple typo can cause significant disruption, such as in 2017, when several Amazon servers. Which supply large parts of the Internet – were temporarily offline due to an input error.
We need to get our hats off quickly to make up for the June 8 damage. But this case shows the dangers of integrating key Internet infrastructures, resulting in single breakdowns. This is another serious wake-up call for law enforcement. And the cybersecurity community, which reaffirms the mission of US and European ransomware taskforces.
Prevent the collapse of the Internet
But are the forces responsible enough to solve this problem? This shows how companies like Fastly are practically publicly owned public spaces. That not only blur the line between business and national infrastructure but are actually “too big to fail…
All of this suggests that the solution to this dilemma must be sought beyond the forces of the multi-sectoral mission. And that requires a thorough political debate about what we want the Internet to look like in the last three-quarter of the 21st century. If we can not make such a decision, others will decide for us.
86% of hacks are financially motivated, while less than 10% are spyware.
What happened, and what is a CDN?
While it was too early to comprehend the causes of the incident fully, the Internet (when it was re-accessible) quickly pointed to the culprit: Fastly. We explained in almost detail, and again because of the importance of the issue.
Ransomware has become a complex billion-dollar business.
Fastly is a cloud computing company that offers CDN services to various websites, including Amazon and Deliveroo. But how can a single company bring down a significant portion of the Internet?
When we access a website, we may think that our browser is going to the Internet, talking to the site remotely, and then presenting the website on its page. Although this is actually what happens, it covers a much more complex process that could involve CDN services.
CDN is a service that allows popular websites to maintain copies of their pages that are closer to their customers.
For example, if we want to browse the BBC website, we can talk directly to a server in the UK. At the same time, the Internet is quite capable of moving web pages from the UK to Australia. There is an inevitable delay (perhaps in the hundreds of milliseconds). And no one likes to be late.
In large-scale cyber-attacks targeting organizations, ransomware gangs have the widespread acceleration to get money from businesses that succeed in hacking them.
So why did all these sites crash?
The CDN service offers a valuable service to improve our web browsing experience – but at a cost.
A targeted hack can simultaneously destroy or violate several organizations.
When a major CDN provider, such as Fastly fails, it does not affect just one website. It will probably affect any website it supports.
On Tuesday, for example, sites around the world suddenly went offline because CDN host content requests were not serviced.
This incident shows how much we trust technology and the specific applications of technology in modern life.
If each website we visit hosts its content, we will not face these problems. However, in this case, our web browsing experience will be much slower and reminiscent of the days of dial-up modems (well, maybe not too bad).
Despite the global outrage, the outage was resolved within about an hour. This seems to indicate that this is unlikely to be a security or hacking issue. This was probably due to a short-term failure of the Fastly infrastructure or an incorrect configuration that was spread across its systems.
Is it possible Turning off repeat it?
Fastly is not the only CDN provider. Akamai and Cloudflare are other high-profile providers. Disconnection is not uncommon, but it is usually short-lived.
A content delivery network, primarily designed to reduce performance bottlenecks, is a system of computers or servers that stores copies of data across different parts of the network.
Readers can be reassured (assuming they have not lost the Internet again). That service providers closely monitor the incident to make sure the lessons learned for the next turn have been learned.
