Published By: TechCrunch, 10/21/2016

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Summary

A recent large scale DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack on DNS provider Dyn caused many sites to become temporarily inaccessible, including Twitter, Spotify, and a number of other important social media, e-commerce, news, and code-sharing sites. The attack was coordinated using a large group of compromised devices known as a “botnet”. Rather than computers, much of this botnet consisted of infected IoT (Internet of Things) devices such as security cameras.

Extended Discussion Questions

• The Internet of Things provides connectivity to everyday objects. What concerns about the viability of this concept does this attack raise?
• The article mentions that the source code for the Mirai botnet had been publicly released. What implications does this have for the future of IoT development?
• At the time of this post, the source code is very easy to find online. What are the pros and cons of this kind of information being so easy to access?

Relating This Story to the CSP Curriculum Framework

Global Impact Learning Objectives:

• LO 7.3.1 Analyze the beneficial and harmful effects of computing.

Global Impact Essential Knowledge:

• EK 7.1.1N The Internet and the Web have changed many areas, including e-commerce, health care, access to information and entertainment, and online learning.
• EK 7.3.1A Innovations enabled by computing raise legal and ethical concerns.
• EK 7.3.1G Privacy and security concerns arise in the development and use of computational systems and artifacts.
•  EK 7.3.1Q Open source and free software have practical, business, and ethical impacts on widespread access to programs, libraries, and code.

Other CSP Big Ideas:

• Idea 6 The Internet

Banner Image: “Network Visualization – Violet – Crop 1”, derivative work by ICSI. New license: CC BY-SA 4.0. Based on “Social Network Analysis Visualization” by Martin Grandjean. Original license: CC BY-SA 3.0