Whatsapp DDoS?
Why is Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram down? Right Now as I type this the biggest social hack in history is going down! Yes, Facebook Inc and their associating brands such as Instagram, Oculus and Whatsapp were all hit by a DDoS attack worldwide on Monday the 4th October 2021 at around 17h30 SSAT (UTC+02:00)
What is a DDoS attack? Distributed denial of service. In not so technical terms, this is when a hacker overloads a server with fake site “visitors” therefore collapsing the servers that are running the website traffic. Servers are only able to handle a certain amount of web traffic at a time before either failing to work, or pushing them to another server. So the DDoS attack is ensuring all the affected servers are getting swarmed with website visitors, causing the website to continuously be overwhelmed with traffic and fail to work. I suspect this attack has been widely spread amongst many of their servers. 503 is the Error Code for busy or overloaded server.
Whose face do we book on it?
After digging and following the attack as it happened, I found that only businesses associated with Facebook inc have been highly affected by this attack.
I find this interesting, as since whatsapp’s latest update, where they introduced the ability to link whatsapp mobile accounts to the web version, without the mobile device even having to be in the vicinity of the web app, there have been some huge security breaches. I have heard of several occasions in the past 3 weeks where people have found that their whatsapp has been hacked by people they do not know in countries they do not reside in.
After assessing a few cases I found that the hack was potentially coming from this new update. I wonder if whatsapp software developers picked this up, as I feel this could be a way in which this big attack has occurred. Understand that VERY SENSITIVE INFORMATION that is of no use to us, but of great use to hackers is passed through these networks, such as discussions on API codes, special passwords to servers etc. I can’t help but think that this could be a direct effect of their own security flaws in this last update.
Whatever it is, it’s going to be one to remember, with the total amount of downtime being almost 7 hours on all their affiliated online brands. What kind of impact will this have at the end, is our data truly safe now? While the attack should be of no harm to us, or our personal accounts, it still leaves any sane person to question the vulnerability we put ourselves in daily by the information we are sharing on these networks.. Read more below on how to keep your device safe and ensure your Whatsapp is not being hacked due to this new Whatsapp update.
Instasafe
I’d like to share a tip on how to ensure you are not being hacked or your Whatsapp devices are not connected elsewhere, to ensure you don’t become a victim of cyber crime. Please do the following on your Whatsapp from your mobile device:
Whatsapp “Settings”
Click on “Linked Devices”
Here you will see a list of devices that your Whatsapp is connected to.
Please ensure you recognise all the devices listed in this area. I also suggest looking at the activity times should you be concerned someone is monitoring you through your own devices via personal hacks. I suggest doing this at least once twice a week, until such a time as we are certain this security breach has been resolved by the Facebook Inc team.
Any Questions on your businesses security and softwares email info@blogaboutbusiness.online
UPDATE: After 7 hours of no server access, I have noted that Facebook INC has gained access to their servers once again. With Facebook being the first to come back online followed by Oculus, Instagram and then slowly through the world the servers were recovered for whatsapp. We noted that messages were slow in reaching the senders, from all side. I image this is from the influx of messages that have been sitting on the servers that were unable to go through. The server would line them up in order of when they were recieved. Most of everything seems to be back to normal, almost 1 hour after the servers were opened. I am very curious to see what their official statement will be on the matter. Until then please feel free to leave your thoughts and comments on the matter below.