August 6th, 2009
After Twitter attack, Facebook investigates potential foul play
Early this morning it was reported that Twitter had experienced at distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that took the site offline for a few hours (service has since been restored). During the time rumors floated that Facebook had suffered a similar attack due to slowness in service.
According to a Facebook spokesperson:
Earlier this morning, we encountered issues within our network that resulted in a short period of degraded site experience for some visitors. No user data was at risk and the matter is now resolved for the majority of users. We’re monitoring the situation to ensure that users continue to have the fast and reliable experience they’ve come to expect from Facebook… We are investigating potential foul play at this time.
While it is possible that Facebook encountered an attack of its own (aside from a new Koobface malware run) it is also just possible that the site was overflowing with lost Twitter users who were looking for temporary social networking salvation.
Update: Facebook confirms DDoS attack:
Earlier this morning, Facebook encountered network issues related to an apparent distributed denial-of-service attack, that resulted in degraded service for some users.
Jennifer Leggio, aka "Mediaphyter," writes about the "social business" side of social media - including enterprise, security and reputation issues. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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