Massive cyberattack grinds Liberia's internet to a halt
Source: The Guardian
The entire internet infrastructure of the African nation of Liberia has been brought to a grinding halt after it was targeted by hackers using the same weapon that caused the largest cyberattack in history just two weeks ago.
The attack was a distributed denial of service or DDoS, in which a network of infected computers – a botnet – is directed to bombard its target with traffic, overloading its servers.
The weapon used in the October attack, the Mirai botnet, was particularly effective because it harnessed infected, internet-connected devices such as DVR players and digital cameras.
Now the same weapon has been used over the past seven days in continued attacks on the west African nation of Liberia, according to Kevin Beaumont, a security expert who has been closely monitoring attacks using Mirai botnets.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/03/cyberattack-internet-liberia-ddos-hack-botnet?CMP=twt_a-world_b-gdnafrica