CourseCast of the Week

Episode 113, 08/09/2009

Title/Description: CyberAttacks against Twitter and Facebook, News Briefs

Welcome to Course Technology's CourseCast of the week, Episode 113, recorded Aug 9th, 2009. This is Ken Baldauf bringing you this week's technology news and information. This CourseCast is brought to you by Course Technology. Check out www.cengage.com/coursetechnology for innovative textbooks and creative electronic learning solutions.

Visit the CourseCasts Website at coursecasts.course.com where you will find links to the full stories covered in this CourseCast, related discussion questions for use in your technology courses, and the CourseCast Archives. And now the news…

Story 1: CyberAttacks against Twitter and Facebook

The big news of the week was a massive cyberattack that took down Twitter for hours on Thursday and interfered with service on Facebook and Google's Blogger. A DDoS attack, or distributed denial of service attack, utilized thousands of infected PCs working together as a botnet to launch repeated requests to Twitter, Facebook, and Blogger. The result was total interruption of service for legitimate Twitter users for two hours Thursday morning, with sporadic outages for days following. The attack lasted Thursday, Friday, and into the weekend, with the targets of the attacks scrambling to sift legitimate requests from those generated by the botnet. Twitter was forced to cut off access to all third party apps in its efforts to stay afloat. Companies that have grown up around Twitter through applications that assist users in managing Tweets and accessing Twitter from cell phones were impacted most, experiencing days of down time. Facebook and Blogger were more successful in battling the attack and maintaining some level of service to users.

Investigations into the DDoS attack suggest that the attack wasn't actually directed at the Web services but rather at one user of the services. McAfee identified six separate DDoS attacks against various accounts registered to a user named "Cyxymu," as well as a simultaneous spam e-mail campaign aimed at Cyxymu's Gmail account. In other words, the attack targeted one particular user, and the millions of other users that utilize the same online social network were merely collateral damage.

• Twitter taken down by denial-of-service attack [Computerworld]
• Update: Twitter limps back to life after DDoS attack [Computerworld]
• DDoS attack that downed Twitter also hit Facebook [Computerworld]
• App developers stung by Twitter's DOS woes [Computerworld]
• Security researchers zero in on Twitter hackers [Computerworld]
• DDOS attackers continue hitting Twitter, Facebook, Google [Computerworld]

News Briefs

• A recent study found that 51 percent of all Internet users between the ages of 18 and 24 have watched at least one streamed TV show in the previous 30 days; that's up from only 18 percent in September 2008
  On demand in command; 51% of young 'Net users view TV online [Ars Technica]
• Microsoft's Bing search engine has gained another one percent of the search engine market over the past month. That puts the combined market share of Microsoft and its new partner Yahoo at 20 percent, and rival Google at 77.5.
  Microsoft's Bing gains another 1 percent of U.S. search [Reuters]
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt has resigned from Apple's board of directors citing issues of growing conflicts of interest. The move emphasizes the growing rivalry between Google and Apple as both are focusing on the smart phone market - Apple with its iPhone and Google with its Android OS for smart phones. Apple's denial of Google's Voice application for the iPhone was probably the straw that broke the camels back.
  Google's Schmidt quits Apple's board; Jobs cites conflicts [Computerworld]
  Apple vs. Google: Tech's Newest Rivalry? [NewsFactor]
• ATM machines in Las Vegas have been hacked to withdraw money from user's accounts without providing the user with any cash!
  Security analyst: Las Vegas ATM's may have malware [Computerworld]
• The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England has warned teenagers that social networks such as Facebook are "weakening relationships, harming communities, forcing the decline of social skills" increasing the risk of teen suicide.
  Archbishop: Facebook can lead to teen suicide [Computerworld]
• It's official, U.S. Marines are banned from using Social Networks such as Facebook and Twitter from military networks.
  Marines solidify ban on Facebook, Twitter [Computerworld]
• A Latvian Internet Service Provider has been shut down after it was discovered to own command-and-control servers for infected botnet PCs located around the world. One security researcher called the ISP a "cesspool of criminal activity."
  After links to cybercrime, Latvian ISP is cut off [Computerworld]
• Sony has unveiled two new e-readers to compete with Amazon's Kindle. One is priced $100 less than the Kindle, and the other sports a touch screens
  Sony unveils two new e-readers, one with a touch screens [Computerworld]
• In other eBook news, AU Optronics has announced that it will begin producing color e-paper displays by the end of 2010.
  AU Optronics hopes to add color to e-paper trend [Computerworld]

That's it for this week's CourseCasts. Email me with your comments and suggestions for the show at coursecasts@gmail.com. Let me know how you use CourseCasts in your classes and I'll give you and your school a shout out on my next CourseCast. Until next time have a great week and be sure to take advantage of the Power -- of Technology!