Massive Internet Disruption Caused By Cyberattack
On the morning of October 21, 2016, malicious actors launched a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack against Dyn, an organization which provides managed DNS services to companies like Twitter, Spotify, Soundcloud, Github, and many others. The outage also affected Box, which is used throughout the UCLA campus.
As a result of this attack, websites relying on services provided by Dyn are intermittently unavailable to internet users across the globe. It is reported that the attack began as early as 11:10 UTC / 04:10 PST.
DNS services provide a similar function as an internet “phonebook,” allowing for the translation of friendly domain names to their respective IP addresses.
The Information Security Office recommends regularly checking Dyn's status page for current updates regarding this outage.
