Update: Akamai blames 'global DNS attack' for disruptions
But a Web performance monitoring firm said it has no evidence of a wider attack
IDG News Service - A global attack on the Domain Name System caused disruptions affecting customers of Internet hosting company Akamai Technologies Inc., including search engine sites, said Jeff Young, an Akamai spokesman.
Akamai disputed early reports that the disruption in service to the sites, including Yahoo.com, Google.com and Microsoft.com, was specific to its network of DNS servers, which translate user-friendly domain names into numeric IP addresses. Instead, the problem on Akamai's network was part of a "large-scale international attack on the Internet infrastructure," Young said.
However, at least one Web performance monitoring company said it has no evidence of a wider attack.
The attack, which Young declined to describe, started shortly before 9 a.m. EDT. The attack affected Akamai's Internet name service and a "small number" of the company's customers, primarily search engines that use Akamai to manage traffic to their Web sites, he said.
"There was an intermittent service issue. It was not an outage on the Akamai network. The name service continued to operate throughout the incident," Young said. "We have no information that leads us to believe the attack was directed specifically at Akamai."
However, others aren't so sure.
Systems at Web performance monitoring company Keynote Systems Inc. noted a decrease in performance at leading Web sites starting at 8:30 a.m. EDT and said that a number of sites, including those for Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc., Google Inc. and Symantec Corp., were only at 20% capacity for as much as an hour this morning, according to Lloyd Taylor, vice president of technology at Keynote.
The companies affected appeared to be Akamai customers. Keynote couldn't rule out a broader attack but said that the company lacks any evidence to support such a claim. However, traffic to other companies on Keynote's Business 40 Internet Performance Index, which includes the corporate Web sites of Cisco Systems Inc., 3Com Corp. and Charles Schwab & Co., weren't slowed, he said.
"There's nothing that has shown up as performance issues yet," Taylor said.
Akamai couldn't provide details about the nature of the attack, where it came from or organizations other than its customers that were affected. However, networks around the world experienced the attack, Young said.
The interruptions at Akamai have the fingerprint of a denial-of-service attack, in which hundreds or thousands of machines work together to flood a specific Internet address or addresses with malicious traffic, slowing it down, Taylor said.
"You saw things get bad suddenly, then get better slowly," he said.
In contrast, service is typically restored quickly after hardware or software failures,once the cause of the failure is determined, Taylor noted.
In the meantime, most of the affected customers have switched to their own DNS servers or those hosted by other companies, Taylor said. However, the Akamai DNS service appeared to be up and running, and Google was still using it to resolve requests to its site today, he said.



- Excel 2010 Cheat Sheet
- Register for this Computerworld Insider Cheat Sheet and gain access to hundreds of premium content articles, guides, product reviews and more.
- Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) Case Study - Oracle
- In this paper, Forrester Consulting examines the total economic impact and potential return on investment (ROI) realized by three Enterprise organizations as they...
- The Hidden Truth About Virtualizing Business-Critical Applications
- This IDG whitepaper highlights key findings based on the Quickpoll Survey conducted with more than 300 Enterprise and Commercial IT decision makers worldwide...
- Top 10 Myths About Virtualizing Business-Critical Applications
- Even though virtualization has brought positive change to enterprise IT over the last decade, some skepticism remains about how valuable virtualization can be...
- Enterprise Java Applications on VMware: Unix to Linux Migration Guide
- This guide focuses on key considerations for IT Architects who are in the process of migrating Java applications from UNIX to Linux as...
- Virtualizing Tier 1 Applications: A Critical Step on the Journey Toward the Private Cloud
- This IDC white paper explains how much of the Enterprise IT community is at a crossroads in extending their journey to the private... All Applications White Papers
- Live Webcast
Banish Poor Application Performance: Eliminate Business Disruptions, Increase End User Productivity - End User Experience, 30-Min Webinar
Wed. Feb. 22nd ~ 11 AM ET
Are you ready to gain the proactive ability to rapidly respond... - Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as...
- Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and...
- Virtualize Business-Critical Applications with Confidence
- Virtualizing business-critical applications has become a key focus for organizations as they move along their virtualization journey. With the launch of VMware vSphere®...
- Discover the Benefits of Virtualization for Federal Applications
- Want to say goodbye to missed SLAs? VMware can help you virtualize mission-critical applications such as Oracle, MS Exchange and SharePoint to achieve...
- Reduce Application Lifecycle Management Costs with VMware ThinApp
- Traditional desktop application deployment and management is a time-consuming and costly endeavor for IT. From development to deployment, including help desk support, the... All Applications Webcasts