back to article 'Non-state actors*' likely to blame for Dyn mega-attack – US intel chief

A senior US intelligence chief has said that "non-state actors" – bored kids or crooks* – are likely behind the high-profile attack on DNS provider Dyn last week. A massive DDoS attack against Dyn resulted in multiple high-profile websites – including Twitter, Amazon and Netflix – to be unavailable last Friday. US director of …

  1. nuked

    I guess the state actors are busy trying to figure out how to bring down our critical infrastructure rather than interrupting an episode on Netflix for an hour or two...

    1. energystar
      Windows

      Miserable state of IoT affairs...

      If just kids can stumble down a good part of the House.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      And trying to steal data while leaving behind as little evidence as possible. As opposed to do a DDoS, which is pretty obvious when it happens.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      We're told Russian State Actors are evil... But what about the Russian State Ballet?

  2. imanidiot Silver badge
    Coat

    uhhuh, sure

    I get a sneaking suspicion an attack as large scale as this could very well be masking some other nefarious activity. And I'm not convinced some state actor WAS involved. Possibly the one denying the involvement of state actors in a press statement...

    --> Mines the one with the tinfoil liner and the roll of tinfoil in the inside pocket.

    1. Adam 1

      Re: uhhuh, sure

      You must be an idiot.

  3. Lee D Silver badge

    Obviously not.

    A state actor would have made a complete hash of it and nobody would have even noticed they were under attack.

    Quite how many "Syrian website offline after US cyberattack" stories are there? None.

    That means they're either so good that mention of it cannot even make it back, or they are untraceable, or they aren't doing it / aren't capable of doing it.

    Occam's Razor gives you the answer.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The US isn't going to waste its time taking an adversary's website offline. They might take a whole country offline before an attack, but generally are trying to steal data or accomplish other narrow goals without anyone knowing. When there's a DDoS, the "without anyone knowing" part is already out the window.

      1. Adam 1

        In other cases it is a strategy to both distract the security apparatus within the organisation under attack and to create a pretty big haystack for the attack that they are trying to hide.

  4. Teiwaz

    I don't understand why they always blame the actors...

    If a show is shit, it's often the scriptwriters or the network execs interfering.

    So who is writing the script for governments these days? And yes, our politicians acting is also abysmal...

    1. choleric

      Re: I don't understand why they always blame the actors...

      I think he did just state actors didn't do it. But maybe that means it was a "state actor" incident, or was it that it was not state actors that did it so it was a "not state actors" incident? I would like to state for the record, and the actors, that I am now confused, or not.

      Perhaps we could do some role-play to clear everything up? Better make it mime so that we don't get confused about what the actors did or didn't state. And ideally not governement funded. Playmobile-or-it-didn't-happen maybe? ... Please?

    2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: I don't understand why they always blame the actors...

      What about actors who are into 'method acting' and are preparing to play the roles of cybercriminals?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Retribution for WikiLeaks

    New World Hackers is loosely affiliated Anonymous, just like Lulz Sec and Lizard Squad. The outages were orchestrated in retaliation for the Ecuadorian embassy cutting off Julian Assange's internet access. WikiLeaks even released an official statement on their Twitter account about it:

    "Mr. Assange is still alive and WikiLeaks is still publishing. We ask supporters to stop taking down the US internet. You proved your point."

    Many within Anonymous also don't believe that Assange is still alive, given that no one has seen Assange for several days now. The fallout will be catastrophic should they discover that than an assassination took place.

  6. Dan 55 Silver badge

    What is a state actor?

    A court jester? Boris Johnson?

    1. Alistair
      Coat

      Re: What is a state actor?

      @ Dan 55:

      Vladimir Putin's Body Double.

  7. shawnfromnh

    Anonymous already took credit for this and said they're taking Facebook down on the 5th.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like