3 Lessons from the Twitter DDoS

by Dan Strom on August 6, 2009

By now we’ve all heard that Twitter was offline for a couple of hours today, and that FaceBook was running slowly. The reports are that they both were victims of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

While this was limited to sites that, admittedly, have little measurable business value, what if it was a business-critical site that was knocked off-line?

Now, stay with me while we take a bit of a leap…

Many small businesses and individuals are moving to “cloud computing”. Working documents are in the “cloud”. Software as a Service (SaaS) is finally starting to take off.

Now, if the “cloud” and SaaS provider that you are using are being hit with a DDoS, what plans do you have for your business?

Lessons for the small business…

  1. Know the risks associated with your technological model – in this case “cloud” vs local.
  2. Make your DRP/BCP include plans in the event your providers are unavailable.
  3. Finally, know what response you will have if your providers never return.

Here’s hoping you have a weekend full of availability!

- Dan

UPDATE: The reports now are that many more sites were affected as a result of targeting ONE user (from cnet.com) !

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