Someone is trying methods to bring down the entire Internet
Imagine waking up one fine morning, drinking your coffee and trying to log into your Facebook or Gmail and discovering that you can't! You might immediately try to tweet about it, but Twitter isn't available either! Then, calling your friends/colleagues and finding out that they're also facing a similar situation. You might find out that no one is able to access any website! It's possible!
It is, according to security researcher Bruce Schneier. In fact, Schneier says someone is already working to bring down the Internet. Schneier, in a report last month, showed that the companies responsible for the Internetare experiencing an escalating series of coordinated attacks that appear to be testing the defenses of their most critical assets.
Based on his research, he says these escalating attacks are just the beginning of a full-scale attack that will bring down the entire Internet and plunge the cyber world into chaos. While Schneier has identified a pattern in the ongoing attacks, he has not been able to identify the unknown entity behind these attacks. He says that, based on the scale of the attacks, the most likely scenario is a single large state entity, with China at the top of the list of suspects.
Schneier says the ultimate goal of such an operation is to enforce a “global blackout of all websites and email addresses on the most frequently used websites.” Notice a pattern in recent DDoS attacks that have been of a certain size, albeit massive. What has distinguished them is their methodically scaled nature. The attacks come in waves, forcing companies to “demonstrate their defensive capabilities to the attackers.”
The findings show that DDoS attacks “continue to become more frequent, persistent, and sophisticated.” Schneier says the unknown attacker is also trying non-DDoS attacks, including attempts to tamper with Internet addresses and routing.
Graham Templeton of ExtremeTech, analyzing Schneier's research, pointed out that those pursuing such attacks would need to have a backup plan in place so that their own Internet wouldn't collapse during such a massive attack. What makes China a likely candidate for such a weapon is that, along with Russia, it has made significant progress in developing systems that would withstand any such attack. Templeton argues that these tests were "meant to be done," for the same reason that nations in the past have tested missiles and nukes as a means of bending global power by demonstrating the ability to blow it up.
In case you wake up one morning and discover that the Internet across the world has collapsed as Schneier says, you know who to blame.
