12:36 PM
Paul B
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| (Photo credit: marsmet526) |
A spat between the widely used Spamhaus that provides a blacklist of potential spammer IP addresses and a Dutch Webhost called Cyberbunker has sparked what some are now calling the largest cyber-attack in the history of the Internet.
The attack is so big, that it is now affecting other Internet services like Netflix and may eventually affect banking systems and email.
From The BBC:
The internet around the world has been slowed down in what security experts are describing as the biggest cyber-attack of its kind in history.
A row between a spam-fighting group and hosting firm has sparked retaliation attacks affecting the wider internet.
It is having an impact on popular services like Netflix - and experts worry it could escalate to affect banking and email systems.
Five national cyber-police-forces are investigating the attacks.
Spamhaus, a group based in both London and Geneva, is a non-profit organisation which aims to help email providers filter out spam and other unwanted content.
To do this, the group maintains a number of blocklists - a database of servers known to be being used for malicious purposes.
Recently, Spamhaus blocked servers maintained by Cyberbunker, a Dutch web host which states it will host anything with the exception of child pornography or terrorism-related material.
Sven Olaf Kamphuis, who claims to be a spokesman for Cyberbunker, said, in a message, that Spamhaus was abusing its position, and should not be allowed to decide "what goes and does not go on the internet".
Spamhaus has alleged that Cyberbunker, in cooperation with "criminal gangs" from Eastern Europe and Russia, is behind the attack.Spamhaus says they have been under attack for over a week now, however their systems have remained online.
The attack is also being investigated by five different cyber-police groups around the world.
The attack against Spamhaus is a standard DDoS attack that is targeting the public DNS servers used by the blacklist provider. The attacks are peaking at around 300 Gbps.
Users utilizing the same DNS providers are obviously feeling the pain as well, and that is why experts are saying that it is affecting a wider group on the internet than just Spamhaus.
Have you been affected by this cyber-attack? If so, let us know in the comments.
