Access to many Island sites was choked off
Details of the cyberattack that choked thousands of websites hosted by Islandnet.com are now in the hands of the RCMP.
Mark Morley, who owns Islandnet.com with brother Steve Morley, said Friday he has reported the attack to West Shore RCMP.
An email Thursday afternoon to the Internet service provider claimed responsibility for the attack, demanding that a particular website be taken down. That website was removed and the sender followed up with another email stating the attacks had ceased.
The RCMP have opened a case file and are referring the matter to their own technical specialists, Mark Morley said.
Islandnet.com on Goldstream Avenue in Langford hosts about 5,000 websites. A directed denial of service (DDoS) attack blocked access to websites on Wednesday and Thursday, although there were some periods when they were available.
In this type of onslaught, hundreds or thousands of computers infected with a virus act on a command to flood a network with data in order to fill up its capacity, thereby blocking legitimate users.
Islandnet.com worked with bandwidth provider Bell Canada and computer network specialist Savvis to block the unwanted data. Websites started to operate as usual as of late Thursday morning.
Details of the cyberattack that choked thousands of websites hosted by Islandnet.com are now in the hands of the RCMP.
Mark Morley, who owns Islandnet.com with brother Steve Morley, said Friday he has reported the attack to West Shore RCMP.
An email Thursday afternoon to the Internet service provider claimed responsibility for the attack, demanding that a particular website be taken down. That website was removed and the sender followed up with another email stating the attacks had ceased.
The RCMP have opened a case file and are referring the matter to their own technical specialists, Mark Morley said.
Islandnet.com on Goldstream Avenue in Langford hosts about 5,000 websites. A directed denial of service (DDoS) attack blocked access to websites on Wednesday and Thursday, although there were some periods when they were available.
In this type of onslaught, hundreds or thousands of computers infected with a virus act on a command to flood a network with data in order to fill up its capacity, thereby blocking legitimate users.
Islandnet.com worked with bandwidth provider Bell Canada and computer network specialist Savvis to block the unwanted data. Websites started to operate as usual as of late Thursday morning.