Can someone take down our Internet? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. It wouldn’t be that hard to do either. I just read an article that gave me chills.
Some people, or some organizations, have been probing Internet security and defense companies. They’re learning how these companies defend themselves and their clients. Not because they want to imitate their strategies. They’re learning defense tactics because they want to take the Internet down. Ever hear of DDoS (distributed denial of service)? This attack blocks users from websites, well, at least the ones that are supposed to be there. Some online companies have seen an increase of DDoS attacks. They’re being attacked by several culprits in several different areas. That means the online companies have to work harder to defend themselves. Hackers are seeing if they can manipulate the Internet addresses and routers, and seeing if online defenders will do something about it. This sounds like something worse than your typical cyber criminal or hacktivists. Could this be the work of mega corporations, or foreign governments?
This article wasn’t written by some stoner in his mom’s basement. This article and research was written and conducted by Bruce Schneier. He’s one of the most respected cyber security techs in the world. He’s written book, essays, and scholarly articles dedicated to online security. Schneier is the CTO (Chief Technological Officer) of Resilient Systems Inc. So if Bruce Schneier sounds a warning like this, the warning needs to be taken seriously. Schneier believes foreign governments could be behind this probing, like Russia and/or China. How many articles have I written about Russian and Chinese hackers? How much tensions have we seen between these nations over the last several years? Yes, this could happen. Yes, it will mean catastrophic things for our Internet if the bad guys are successful. Can this threat be stopped?