Internet Apocalypse Now? Experts Say No

[steve2470]

http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/spam/309788-internet-apocalypse-now-experts-say-no

The amplified DDoS attack by Web hosting provider CyberBunker against antispam outfit SpamHaus Project is big news. The New York Times weighed in, as did the BBC. Internet protection agency CloudFlare reported that the attack escalated up to Tier 1 bandwidth providers, and that a 300 Gbps DDoS attack slowed connections for many Internet users. But wait a minute. Did you experience a slowdown? Neither did I. In fact, quite a few experts now report that even this biggest-ever DDoS attack didn't appreciably affect the Internet overall.

Keynote Systems constantly monitors the response time of 40 "important US-based business Web sites," connecting with them from a number of key locations around the world. The average response time varies, but tends to stay roughly in the same range. And the Keynote Performance Index shows only a mild "blip" during the attack.

Keynote expert Aaron Rudger said, "The numbers don't lie—and that's a fact." Referencing a graph of performance over the past four weeks, he noted that "the European agents report back pretty consistent and normal performance throughout ... the DDoS event. However, there is a little blip that shows up."

"We do see," said Rudger, "that the European agents were experiencing slower response times—up to 40% slower than average—between 8:30am and 2:30pm (PST) on March 26. It is possible that the Spamhaus attack could be related to this slowdown but we can’t be sure." Rudger noted that thousands of people streaming the big soccer match that occurred at the same time could account for the slowdown." He rejects the claim that the attack caused days of disruption, saying, "We simply do not see [that] from our data."