The networks have all reported the DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) cyberattack upon the DNS (Domain Name Server) Dyn that occurred last Friday.  This attack effectively tied-up (and shut down) thousands of websites in the Northeastern United States and eventually progressed to affect the West Coast, most of Texas, and then a large part of Europe.  Tens of millions of people were affected by this attack on the networks.

This article is not about the specifics of that attack.  The most definitive post on the cyberattack can be found within an article by Libby Plummer for MailOnline written for the DailyMail.com entitled Massive cyber hack that floored Amazon, Twitter, HBO and Reddit could be 'practice for election day.  The article covers the "how's" and technical parameters of everything that happened with the attack, and it is approximately 26 pages long.  We will be utilizing some of the key tenets of that article here; however, the purpose for this one is not to examine the specific attack.  Please refer to Miss Plummer's article for those specifics and a good primer on the intricacies of a cyberattack.

In this instance the attack was conducted against Dyn, an infrastructure maintenance DNS based in New Hampshire that enables users to connect to the servers of various websites.  Dyn has stated that tens of millions of IP (Internet Provider) addresses were used in the cyberattack to effect chaos.  Dyn was quoted as saying the breach was "a very sophisticated and complex attack."  To understand what Dyn does is critical to the rest of this article.

DNS firms serve the critical function of converting IP addresses, in the form of a number, into the various domain names found on the websites that users link to.  Picture it as being a "baseball team manager" who manages the players and organizes them into an effective team.  Of course this analogy is small-scale, as this cyberattack effected thousands of different websites.

The point is this:  just one DNS was taken down, effectively disrupting thousands of websites and millions of users.

Here is an excerpt from the aforementioned article that gives some basic insight.

 "…online criminals have once again gone after a significant site with a DDoS attack.  Not Twitter, or other popular and equally affected sites such as Spotify, Reddit, Github and SoundCloud though, but rather DNS provider Dyn.  And that highlights a problem – any company running its own website may well have its own technology in place to mitigate DDoS attacks, but it's all for nought if the DNS provider itself is not applying a sufficient enough level of protection to its own servers and data centres."