In October 2016, several major websites that many people use daily, including Twitter, PayPal, Reddit, and Netflix, as well as those of the papers New York Times and Wall Street Journal, experienced what is called a distributed denial of service attack.  This attack, known as DDoS, prevents certain sites from being online through overcrowding with bots who take over insecured routers, IP cameras, and other easily hackable devices.  Imagine floods of driftless and random people trying to all cram into a door at once: some people legitimately interested in the business can get through, but most do not.  They interrupt and even stop the flow of people to a website by creating so much fake traffic that the servers or bandwidth are not capable of supporting it all, and that is when a crash happens.

Distributed denial of service attacks affected the west coast and parts of Europe

These attacks, of which there were three, affected the United States, concentrating on the west coast, and parts of Europe. Unfortunately, they highlight some problematic vulnerabilities with the rather outdated way in which the Internet functions.  Things like DNS (domain name system, or the way any device connects to the Internet or a private network), one-factor authentication (password-only security), and unencrypted web connections are all trouble-free ways for hackers to get whatever information they need to do whatever they please.  Symptoms of these attacks include slow network performance, inability to get access to a website, loss of internet connection, and even spam emails.

Is your website protected?

So if you’re wondering how to secure you and your business from attacks and major disruptions like this, we’ve got answers for you.  Things like Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, and plugins are just a few of the easy and effective things we can implement on your website to make sure that you’re protected and anonymous.  And the best part? You don’t’ have to worry about it at all.  We will make sure everything stays up-to-date and secured and you can return to running your business.