August 6, 2009

Statement from Twitter on denial of service attack

Posted: 11:09 AM ET

Here's a more detailed update on the Twitter outage. Thanks for those of you who are commenting on the situation. Please keep it up.

Sent to CNN.com by Biz Stone, a Twitter co-founder:

"There's no indication that this attack is related to any previous activities. We are currently the target of a denial of service attack. Attacks such as this are malicious efforts orchestrated to disrupt and make unavailable services such as online banks, credit card payment gateways, and in this case, Twitter for intended customers or users. We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we defend and later investigate."

By "previous activities," Stone is referring to the hacker that stole some of Twitter's internal documents, including financial forecasts, and published them online. The incident caused a stir, as the blog TechCrunch decided to run with the story. More on that situation from CNN.com here. And more updates on the current Twitter outage are on the way.

Posted by: John D. Sutter -- CNN.com writer/producer
Filed under: Twitter

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Jim		August 6th, 2009 11:23 am ET Twitter is so last year. Flag this comment

Shannon		August 6th, 2009 11:25 am ET Twitter is pretty lame if it can't defend against a DDOS attack. My morning is ruined. Flag this comment

Cheryl in MI		August 6th, 2009 11:32 am ET Facebook has been acting very strangely all day, too. Has anybody determined if it is under similar attack? Flag this comment

M Carlson		August 6th, 2009 11:34 am ET Wasn't Twitter just banned from Armed Forces use? Wasn't the case for banning Twitter because it was being used to spread malicious lies to our servicepeople? Oops, Twitter all gone. Flag this comment

Mikey		August 6th, 2009 11:38 am ET Thank god, I hate twitter. Hopefully a hacker figures out how to bring it down permanantly. Flag this comment

John		August 6th, 2009 11:40 am ET Facebook is having server response problems as well today – perhaps CNN could check if they're getting DDoS'd too? Flag this comment

Karras Bommer		August 6th, 2009 11:44 am ET At 10:40 am central time USA both Twitter and Facebook are down. Considering the popularity of these two social networks I find this an interesting strategic attack. Just someone showing what they could do? Flag this comment

Liza		August 6th, 2009 11:44 am ET This is horrible. Cyberterrorists are such cowards. Flag this comment

Rainman		August 6th, 2009 11:56 am ET This may sound paranoid but I suspect attack is coming from Iranian government. This denial-of-service attack is preparatory to another attack on dissidents. Twitter was used extensively by dissidents in first crackdown. This caused Iranian government to back down from all out suppression. Therefore they would want Twitter down before any new attempt at suppression. Flag this comment

Dale		August 6th, 2009 12:07 pm ET Oh no!! Now people might actually have to call their friends to have a conversation with them! Or worse yet – Talk to them IN PERSON!!! This is the end of civilization as we know it! Flag this comment

Jack		August 6th, 2009 12:10 pm ET Maybe it’s cyber sabotage from DPRK or even China. While comments have negative views re Twitter, it is not just people bored to tears telling others what they are doing at the moment. In China and other places, twitter is used to share important news and information which otherwise is censored or omitted. Twitter serves a great purpose for those who need to share info but not able to when there is no freedom of speech or press. Flag this comment

melissa		August 6th, 2009 12:14 pm ET plurk, twitter and facebook are acting strangely. and it's been going on for a long while now. and twitter has been acting wonky, on and off, for ages. it does make you scratch your head in wonderment. Flag this comment

dave		August 6th, 2009 12:18 pm ET I could see this comming, over the last two days activity has been ridiculous due to the number of new tweet trains that have sprang up. when the tech guys get to the bottom of it i bet the virus came from middle east , russia or china Flag this comment
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Statement from Twitter on denial of service attack

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