Amazon and Reddit Downed by Huge Internet Outage

What happened the consolation prize for most people as we've experienced the apocalyptic events of the past year or so has been simple at least we've got the internet good old trusty internet whatever's going on outside you can bury your head in reddit or twitter or tomo news and pretend all's well except on tuesday that bubble of calm was pierced when a load of the largest websites in the world all simultaneously went down apparently nothing is sacred here's what you need to know thousands of websites including reddit amazon paypal spotify and the british government's official site went down across the world on tuesday after content delivery network provider fastly suffered a disruption according to a reuters report over 45 minutes users trying to access many high traffic sites received an error message according to the guardian though users in some places reported no problems throughout the outage content delivery networks are the internet's middlemen instead of visitors to a website having to connect directly to servers run by that company which might be far away companies like fastly run server farms around the globe that carry copies of websites thus speeding up the connection process of course if one of those content delivery networks goes down then you have what is technically called the absolute nightmare scenario of having no access to the group of websites they provide access to and this is more important than simply restricting our access on reddit media measurement firm kantar calculated that worldwide websites lost more than 29 million dollars in ad revenue per hour during the outage according to reuters what's more the guardian reports users in the uk who are denied access to the british government's website were unable to use important services including making covid19 vaccination bookings the outage highlights a vulnerability in the increasingly centralized structure of internet provider infrastructure according to the guardian only a small number of content delivery networks serve the entire world with each one running huge numbers of websites outages are rare but when they occur even websites like the british governments which can run on a backup network need time to switch over manually despite some rumors this outage isn't thought to have been caused by hackers unlike some other recent disruptions Colonial Pipeline Hack when you think of computer hacking you think of code on a screen internet banking and email scams what you don't think of is a large fuel pipeline and yet this weekend hackers targeted exactly that here's what you need to know the hack on a 5500 mile pipeline on the us east coast is being looked at as one of the most significant attacks on key national infrastructure in history according to the bbc the colonial pipeline which according to cnet serves fuel to 7 airports and 14 states was forced to shut down on saturday after hackers broke into its computer systems in order to hold the company to ransom colonial is working with the shippers to deliver fuel according to cnet however the associated press says more than 1 000 gas stations in the southeast have reported running dry due to panic buying with states of emergency declared in both florida and virginia it is possible hackers could have gained access to colonial's computer network simply using an email to an employee according to cyber expert john nichols from checkpoint who was cited by the bbc the fbi has identified the hacker group darkseid as the group behind the attack and describing darkseid's sophisticated operation cyber reason reports that they use a help desk to negotiate with the targets of their attacks and have their own affiliate program cnet reports that these types of cyber attacks have become common city governments around the us including baltimore's and atlantas have been hit by ransomware attacks in the past and hospitals have been forced to shut down u.s president joe biden has said he is being personally briefed on the situation responding to the large-scale political repercussions of his hack russia-based dark side has already attempted to backtrack according to the bbc it said on its website our goal is to make money and not creating problems for society we do not participate in geopolitics it added we've all been there haven't we you've hacked into the biggest pipeline in the us and you suddenly realize the american government might come after you so what do you do tell everyone you didn't mean it it was just about stealing millions of dollars no big deal nothing to see here and hope it all goes away to be honest it seems like these guys are good at computers but not great at life a us government website was targeted by a group of iranian hackers on saturday january 4th amid ongoing tensions between iran and the u.s over the killing of qasim suleimani a high-ranking iranian commander according to afp the federal depository library program's website was replaced with a page called iranian hackers as soon as the site was opened visitors were shown a picture of us president donald trump bleeding through the mouth and being punched in the face by what seems to be the fist of an iranian revolutionary guard the website also showcased images of iran's leader ayatollah ali khamenei the flag of iran and a message from the country's leader which expresses support for the oppressed people in the middle east in a statement a spokesperson from the cyber security and infrastructure security agency told cnn that the site has since been taken offline and is no longer accessible the official said that there's no confirmation of whether or not the hacking operation was part of iran's state-sponsored activities cnn reports suleimani was killed on january 3 by a u.s airstrike ordered by president trump after the u.s department of defense accused him of developing plans to attack american military personnel and diplomats in iraq and the middle eastern region the pentagon also says he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of americans and wounding thousands more Smart TV Privacy 20 years ago if someone suggested that their water heater was spying on them you would have had to ask them if they needed some time off work these days they're probably right especially if they've got one particular type of tv here's how that works a chinese analytics company has been collecting personal data from sky worth brand smart tvs without users consent scanning their wi-fi every 10 minutes and uploading information according to protocol the practice was revealed by a user who noticed their tv was being slow and analyzed back end program code to find out why what they found was a program by beijing based goes in data according to the user the program not only tracked activity on skyworth smart tvs it also tracks smart device activity near the tvs a skywarth spokesperson in hong kong told apple daily that it denied intruding on people's privacy saying instead that it collected user data to facilitate personalized advertising protocol reports statements on gozin's website that say its data collection service covers 149 million households 140 million smart tvs and 457 million people in china smart devices are increasingly prevalent in homes across china and protocol reports weibo users shared concerns over security noting how everything from stoves to kitchen hoods to water heaters is now linking up to the internet although the story arrives as the chinese government has introduced new regulations projecting personal data and limiting its collection via mobile apps according to the south china morning post many will be familiar with china's existing privacy issues china has eight of the world's 10 most surveilled cities based on the number of cameras per 1000 people according to uk-based research firm mccomparatech cited by cnn china is accused of China Hacked Equifax masterminding the equifax hack and what is surely the latest western imperialist plot to hurt the feelings of 1.4 billion chinese people according to the washington post the hacc compromised personal data of nearly half of all americans a federal grand jury charged four chinese military officers on tuesday for the massive hack of the credit rating giant equifax that occurred in 2017. the four are alleged members of the people's liberation army's 54th research institute speaking at a press conference in washington u.s attorney general william barr called the hack one of the largest data breaches in history barr said the hackers stole personal information and trade secrets including data compilation and database designs bbc reports that the hackers allegedly routed traffic through 32 servers in nearly 20 countries to conceal their location as they conducted the cyber attack which occurred from may to june in 2017. the u.s department of justice named three of the four suspects but their whereabouts are unknown the washington post quotes fbi deputy director david bowdich as saying we can't take them into custody try them in court of law and lock them up not today anyway however bowditch says the fbi is not giving up he adds but one day these criminals will slip up and when they do we'll be there for more news animations and explainers hit the subscribe and bell button to join the tomo news family thanks for watching