A massive cyber attack that took down numerous popular websites provides a unsettling glimpse of how online warfare could create massive chaos around the world.
The incident began around 7 AM Eastern Time when a myriad of sites, including titans like Twitter, Netflix, Spotify, and Reddit, suddenly became inaccessible to Internet users.
Lasting for about two hours, the cyber attack was caused by some malicious group or organization overwhelming an Internet infrastructure company with a tactic known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS).
Similar disruptions have been inflicted upon individual websites, but this particular attack struck at a deeper level of the Internet's infrastructure and, thus, was able to wipe out numerous websites.
Although the issue seemed to be resolved around 9 AM, a subsequent attack was unleashed later in the day and more may be forthcoming in the days and weeks ahead.
The series of events should serve as a wake up call to those blissfully unaware of how truly vulnerable our society is to a cyber attack.
As discussed numerous times on Coast to Coast in the past, a similar attack on our nation's power grid could plunge the country into total chaos.
With cyber espionage emerging as a key factor in this year's presidential election and rumors of retaliation emanating in Washington, one wonders if the massive attack on Friday will be seen in hindsight as the start of a larger online war.
Although it is easy to dismiss such an idea as paranoia, skeptical minds may change if the outages stop happening to news and information websites and start taking down critical
For more on the worrisome nature of what may lie ahead, Coast Insiders should listen to legendary news anchor Ted Koppel's appearance on the 12/1/2015 edition of the program where he warned our listeners about the dangers of a cyber attack on America's power grid.
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Source: CBS News