Other LanguagesUsers of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter expect the services provided to fit their desires. When this fails to happen, as with Thursday’s Twitter outage and sluggish Facebook performance, frustrated consumers often believe the sites are solely at fault. However, individuals with inadequate anti-malware software may be unwittingly contributing to certain service deficiencies.
Twitter encountered an outage earlier this morning that was due to a so-called “distributed denial of service attack.” This usually happens when numerous computers with infected malware simultaneously attempt to access the site.
Symantec blogger Marian Merritt explains, "It's often the case that DDOS attacks come from computers infected with bots, turning them into zombie computers doing their cybercriminal's bidding.”
Tech writers suggest that a new Internet worm named Koobface may be the culprit. (The name is an anagram of Facebook.)
A CNET blogger notes that you can help keep your PC from becoming part of the problem by using a good anti-malware program and making sure you download the latest operating-system patches. Visit Microsoft and Apple security pages for information.
Check out the Washington Attorney General’s Internet Safety site for more tips.
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Posted by Johnie Freatman