The website GitHub is popularly used by coders who either want help with their coding or are willing to check others to help them solve their coding troubles. For those unfamiliar with coding, the basic premise goes that your program coding may have 99 errors, you fix one of them and then, good news! You have 112 errors!
Despite the website being part of a coding community, it has been hit with the largest DDoS attack ever recorded on the internet.
DDoS stands for Denial-of-service. As the name would suggest, such attacks prevent websites from working correctly. This is achieved by hackers either via software or en-mass sending data requests to a website. It works by simply making it work so much traffic that it all grinds to a halt.
The attack lasted for roughly 8 minutes before GitHub identified the attack and was able, by their security, to divert the attack elsewhere.
In a report via ITProPortal, the attack which was conducted against GitHub was thought to have contained 1.35 terabytes of data. With this data size, it represents the largest ever DDoS attack ever conducted.
The question as to why they were attacked remains unclear, but the bottom line is, usually DDoS targets can be entirely indiscriminate.
Yes and no. While the attack did significantly reduce the running capability of GitHub, it is not thought that the website actually ground to a halt. In addition, the anti-DDoS security the website had since 2016 acted perfectly in ensuring the attack did not even successfully last 10 minutes.
It is, if nothing else, an interesting chapter and new record in the world of internet security.
What do you think? Why was GitHub attacked? Surprised at the size of the attack? In addition, impressed with the security? – Let us know in the comments!
By supporting eTeknix, you help us grow. And continue to bring you the latest news, reviews, and competitions. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up with the latest technology. Share your favourite articles, chat with the team and more. Also check out eTeknix YouTube, where you’ll find our latest video reviews, event coverage and features in 4K!
Electronic Arts (EA) announced today that its games were played for over 11 billion hours…
Steam's annual end-of-year recap, Steam Replay, provides fascinating insights into gamer habits by comparing individual…
GSC GameWorld released a major title update for STALKER 2 this seeking, bringing the game…
Without any formal announcement, Intel appears to have revealed its new Core 200H series processors…
Ubisoft is not having the best of times, but despite recent flops, the company still…
If you haven’t started playing STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl yet, now might be the…