‘Ugly’ computer hack named the largest ever
The largest computer hack ever conducted has reportedly taken place after servers across Europe were inundated with spam in a concerted effort to bring them down.
Exploiting loopholes in the Network Time Protocol, a system used to synchronise the internet, attackers were able to flood servers with around 400 gigabits of data every second.
A flaw in this system means that a computer seeking to synchronise itself must make a request to the NTP which will subsequently reply. The amount of data fired back is larger than that sent however, amplifying the effects of any attack.
Hackers are also able to fool the NTP into returning the data to a different computer.
One security analyst, Matthew Prince of Cloudfare, described the attack as ‘the start of ugly things to come’, warning that ‘Someone has a big new cannon’ to smite networks with.