THROWBACK THURSDAY: Massive Cyberattack

We were there when it happened… then again so were you and you probably don’t remember. I point to an article from March of 2013 on this very blog, titled “Slow internet? It’s not just you.” It was the day of the largest cyber attack in internet history, even to this day. It was the day a group of spammers decided to fight back against European countries that had taken a stand against them. They used the time-tested “DDoS” attack method, which basically sends so much traffic through one point that no one else can get in.

Why does this stuff not happen that often?

Large scale cyberattacks are notoriously hard to pull off. You can overwhelm a single site, or even a small area, but affecting a large chunk of the internet itself is pretty hard. It was designed that way. Remember the roots of the internet come from US military technology. It’s designed so that if one part isn’t working well, other parts are able to take up the slack. In the 50 years since the internet was invented (and the 30 years since the World Wide Web was invented) it’s only gotten more robust. Yes, there are places around the world where a single piece of fiber connects them to the rest of the world, but not many of them.

Here’s why you don’t remember the attack

The internet itself actually performed very well that day, proving that its very design made it very resistant to attacks. There are some countries which have only one or two physical connections between themselves and the rest of the world. On the other hand, most European countries are so strongly connected that the traffic just went through other portals. It slowed everyone down, but not for long.

Since then, there has not been another cyber attack this large (that we know of). As I said, there are some cases where there’s just one strand of fiber in or out. That’s you’ll hear occasionally about cases where the internet connections in whole countries stops working. It’s simply because someone cut their single line to the rest of the world. It’s a tough lesson to learn. The fact is that we’ve become so connected as a planet. It means that it’s more important that internet lines stay up sometimes than phone lines, mail service, or any other forms of communication. It’s just who we are in 2021.

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.