Cyber Attack Takes Liberia’s Entire Internet Down

A cyber attack has knocked Liberia’s internet offline, as hackers targeted the nation’s infrastructure using the same method that shut down hundreds of the world’s most popular websites at the end of last month. The attack, which is the same used to shut off sites including Netflix, eBay and Reddit, fuels fears that cyber criminals are practicing ways to sabotage the US’ internet when the country heads to the polls on November 8. Dave Larson, CTO and COO at Corero Network Security commented below.

Dave Larson, CTO and COO at Corero Network Security:

“DDoS is killing Internet service availability across the globe, and it is about time the ISP’s step up and take action. In the past providers have taken an agnostic stance and reverted to their primary role of just moving traffic. This approach is no longer acceptable, as the technology now exists to mitigate the scaled DDoS attacks that we are seeing from the Internet of Things – there just needs to be greater urgency in increasing the scale of the mitigation capacity and the use of the latest in-line, real-time, automated tools. It’s the Mirai code causing the major outages today, it will be a variation of that code, and new methods in the future.”