Experts think that recent attacks on the Internet could be a prelude to far worse ones. One expert recently said that it looks as if someone is learning how to take down the Internet.
Then on October 21st, Dynamic Network Services (Dyn), a firm that is part of the internet-address system, was disrupted by what is called a “distributed denial of service” (DDoS) attack. Then for hours, hundreds of websites were hard to reach, including those of Netflix, PayPal and Twitter.
The attack on Dyn was only the latest in a string of similar ones. It’s not clear who the attackers are, although security analysts suspect they are either Chinese or Russian.
At any rate, all the attacks used the same software, called Mirai, whose source code has been leaked online.
As for the goal of the attacks, it could be to take down the internet in the US or some fret that such virtual weapons could be turned to full blast to disrupt the US election.