Some Still Aren’t Protected from DDoS Attacks: Downtime Inevitable

Here at Alertra we often discuss the importance of protecting your website against DDoS attacks – the type of attacks that flood your site with traffic to the point the servers go down for the count. Website monitoring service is a very important tool in your arsenal to fight website downtime caused by DDoS antics. Unfortunately, many websites are still unprotected against DDoS attacks, foregoing website monitoring service, as is evidenced by the recent outages experienced by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

A Rogue Hacker Brings Down Canadian Intelligence

According to reports, CSIS websites were down for the third time in a 24-hour period following two earlier cyberattacks today and Monday. A rogue hacker using the name “Aerith” took credit for the outages, including the main CSIS website and the CSIS careers website, both of which went offline during the attacks. The hacker claims that he, along with hacker group Anonymous, will take part in an anti-Canada Day attack that will create Internet chaos for Canada on Wednesday, the first of July. Apparently, the goal of the attacks is to embarrass the government in protest of Bill C-51.

Is It Working?

If the goal of the DDoS attacks was to embarrass the Canadian government, it may be working. Most webmasters know that DDoS attacks can be prevented, and website monitoring service is one of the ways in which these attacks can be foreseen and prevented. When a site is being constantly monitored, the internal changes created by a DDoS attack can be seen before the site actually goes down, allowing the proper parties to take appropriate action to prevent a complete outage. It does not seem that CSIS has such security in place in light of the recent outages.

Downtime Is Downtime, No Matter How It Happens

While CSIS may be downplaying the importance of the DDoS attacks and the resulting website downtime, it is a reminder that anyone who does not properly guard their website is at risk of such an attack. If you have yet to put website monitoring service to work for you, you may want to consider the recent attacks on the CSIS websites and consider if now is not the time to protect your website before such an event brings your website down into the dark. After all, while CSIS may be downplaying the importance of the recent downtime it experienced, for ecommerce sites that rely on uptime for profits, no form of downtime is acceptable. This is especially true when the downtime can be prevented through measures such as DDoS protection and quality website monitoring service.