Massive DDoS attack spotlights internet choke point

Friday's mass DDoS attack against a DNS provider spotlights a long-standing weakness in how traffic moves across the internet.  Internet services were interrupted several times Friday following a mass DDoS attack that caused disruptions of Netflix, Twitter, Spotify, SoundCloud, GitHub and Reddit, to name a few. Both the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are looking into the attack, officials told Reuters. Much is unknown, but right now experts say the DDoS attack primarily hit Boston-based DNS provider Dyn. Carl Herberger, vice president of security solutions at Radware, believes the attack was actually directed at one or more of Dyn’s customers, which in turn impacted Dyn and cascaded down to interrupt service for customers. “Because of the way that the internet is built, that means that anybody that was resolving their domain name and was using Dyn DNS as an Authoritative DNS server, then they became instantly unavailable on the internet," Herberger said.