The series of attacks that led to Twitter downtime and outages for Facebook, Google and LiveJournal globally was down to denial of service (DoS) attacks aimed at disrupting internet access for one individual; a controversial blogger from Georgia known as Cyxymu.
Facebook chief security officer Max Kelly told Cnet News that all of these sites were targeted at the same time because the Georgian blogger had accounts with all of the services.
“It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him to keep his voice from being heard,” said Kelly.
“We’re actively investigating the source of the attacks and we hope to be able to find out the individuals involved in the back end and to take action against them if we can.”
As Twitter’s 45 million users were unable to access the service for several hours followed by sporadic connectivity throughout the day, several analysts have suggested that this attack took place in either Georgia or Russia.
As reported on the NYTimes.com Bill Woodcock, research director of the Packet Clearing House, a non-profit organisation that tracks internet traffic, said the attack was the further manifestation of ongoing conflict between Russia and Georgia.
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