I’m not an IT expert, but I decided to check. This is a very high level hack. Here is what the DNS query for Facebook shows this morning:
According to Internet security researcher Brian Krebs (@briankrebs),
Confirmed: The DNS records that tell systems how to find Facebook.com or Instagram.com got withdrawn this morning from the global routing tables. Can you imagine working at FB right now, when your email no longer works & all your internal FB-based tools fail?
To be more precise (and Geek Factor 5) the BGP routes serving Facebook’s authoritative DNS were withdrawn, rendering all Facebook domains inaccessible. That’s per @DougMadory , who knows a few things about BGP/DNS.
Domain Name Servers (DNS) are the most important thing on the Internet. It is like a phone book, where you type a name, and the DNS record says, oh, Facebook is here at this IP numerical address.
Without DNS records, Facebook and Instagram are DOA.
[UPDATE]
Disclose.tv
@disclosetv
JUST IN – Facebook employees reportedly can’t enter buildings to evaluate the Internet outage because their door access badges weren’t working (NYT)
Blame cbs, they pissed Markeemark off and he took his ball and went home. 😉
Wow! I don’t spend much time at Facebook anyway, but I just tried and can’t get there.
I use the whatsapp messages all the time to keep in touch with people around the world, and find thr outage inconvenient. Registered with FB some 10 or so years ago and someone hijacked it before I menaged to put anything there. Instagram is an unknown to me.
I also use Whatsapp almost daily, a very useful thing.
Since month I use Signal instead, left WA.
Tee-hee! It just shows how vulnerable the world is to this sort of thing.
Not only has FB apparently fubar’d its own DNS settings, I Choose To Believe the Sources that are Saying that the employees can’t even get into the rooms where the routers et al are stored because, guess what! All the badge swipe security is IoT and with the FB servers being down, there’s no way to swipe the badges.
Like the NG providers who couldn’t manipulate valves manually, these folks outsmarted themselves….oh, well, doors can be opened with fire axes.
From AppleNews
PCMag: How To Completely Disappear From The Internet
Reuters reports (unrelated?):
KYIV, Oct 4 (Reuters) – Ukrainian police said on Monday they had arrested a 25-year-old man who hacked more than 100 foreign companies and caused damage worth more than $150 million.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/ukrainian-police-arrest-hacker-who-caused-150-million-damage-global-firms-2021-10-04/
Not surprised. Only surprised that there aren’t more – presumably he was the only one that Ukrainian government didn’t want to hire.
Damn that Donald Trump! Will he stop at nothing??
😉
I’m so old I that I can remember it used to be: “Rove, you magnificent b*st*rd!”
No, no, no – Facebook was working so hard to censor “disinformation” that they managed to come up with a “disinformation” algorithm that censored them. Love the fact that they can’;t even get in the front door.
In other humor news…Elon Musk sez the USA must double its electricity output to accommodate EVs……better wind those windmills up and clean those solar cells. In the meantime some USA utilities are looking at burning oil instead of the high priced NG ….you can’t make this stuff up.
If I remember correctly, it only took a 3hp electric motor to open and close the original lock gates on the Panama Canal. Well built.
Perhaps the could hook up 30hp electric (or gas) motor to the windmills to give the appearance the windmills are still working?
That’s all they’re after anyway, the appearance the things work to get more subsidies and “damage to the environment” exemptions. (How many endangered birds and bats have these things swatted out of the air?)
They already have motors built in.
1743 UTC from The Register
https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/04/facebook_sites_outage/
best information yet.
P****ing myself at staff being locked out of the building
Down Detector.
https://downdetector.com/status/facebook/
Facebook headquarters- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUzGF401vLc
Apparently, the Facebook algorithm to censor misinformation is finally working.
Coincidentally, covid solved overnight
This is exactly the reason I wish I could buy products with self-contained software or that would run on my network rather than in the cloud. When the your part of the cloud is down you are SOL. Why do door locks need to go through the internet so hackers can open your door? Why do baby monitors need to go through the internet so hackers can watch your child?
@ur momisugly Playing Nice, I used to enjoy playing games on the computer. Now you cannot play a game on the computer unless you are connected to the internet. I don’t play any games on the computer anymore.
I play games on the computer. Of course they’re all 20 years old. Check out GOG.com, they sell old computer games.
This has been discussed quite heavily on gab.com this morning. There are several other news items related to Facebook that may or may not be related to the outage.
When I heard about the outage I thought that Facebook must have taken its own system down until they could block all discussion of the Veritas interview. But now I suspect that the hacker may be responsible for both the outage and the employee lock-out.
The theory that the staff cant get in because they need internet access to a system that is down, sounds plausible.
Since the root issue seems to be not that soeme has diverted BGP, but that BGP adverts have simply stopped, its probably an issue inside the company.
It should be possible to hack it with static routes at some level
Update failour 😀
AS I liked to put errors of this type: “Configuration Error”.
Ahhhh. I was worried why, suddenly, people started to talk to each other instead of looking to the mobile phone. I was trying to explain it with climate change but I decided to look at real data and, as a matter of fact, that crap is down.
Yup – FB is down (Belgium)
You knows how many careers will be saved by people prevented from self-destruction by Facebook and Instagram indiscretions.
Oh not to worry; once it’s back up they’ll be going all out to make up for lost time. Some people just seem to be drawn to fb like flies to shit.
Lets see which does more phycological harm. Climate change or no Facebook.
Possibly a typo, but I’m not sure how Facebook affects plant life
FB doesn’t affect plant life but it affects the life and mental health of hundreds of millions of kids around world. Going cold turkey on FB will have an impact on these kids and the longer FB is out of action the bigger the impact. Did you forget Gretel and her mentally ill minions?
Really? How interesting. I guess you should have spelled it ‘psychological’ then if that was your meaning?
FB and the rest social media along with our current education system in the US seem to be devoted to producing vegetables that can’t think for themselves but are (or will be) eligible to vote.
Maybe it wasn’t a typo?
Yes, NOT a typo …
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of guys.
Never signed up for any of them, I hope it is permanent.
The Anonymous hacking group has been busy over the last 4 days posting 3 rounds of embarrassing and annoying pictures, videos, and cartoons to various Chinese government web pages via various password hacks on vulnerable Chinese government servers.
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4305341
CCP has ordered what is probably counter-hacking attacks back at the West.
Check the insider trading… Fb and Zucks are cashing in on the “fluctuation” no doubt.
On another blog that has been tracking this fiasco all day they say Zuckerberg has lost $7 BILLION in net worth.
Not enough 😀
Possibly more in the long term. The longer this goes on, the more people will turn to alternatives.