This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27790068
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
Version 1 | Version 2 |
---|---|
Feedly and Evernote struck by denial of service cyber-attacks | |
(about 11 hours later) | |
The news aggregator Feedly says it has come under a "distributed denial of service" attack from cyber criminals, which is preventing users from accessing its service. | |
"The attacker is trying to extort us money to make it stop," representatives of the company, which has 15 million users, said in a blog post. | |
"We refused to give in," they added. | |
On Tuesday, the popular online notes and web clippings service Evernote suffered a similar attack. | |
It is not yet known whether the two are linked, but Feedly and Evernote work closely together. | |
After coming under attack earlier on Wednesday, Feedly assured users their data was safe, and said it was working with its network provider to remove the threat. | |
On Tuesday, Evernote members were temporarily unable to synchronise their notes from one device to another while it continued. | |
The California-based company announced last month that it had more than 100 million users. | The California-based company announced last month that it had more than 100 million users. |
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are caused by what can be thousands of computers sending huge amounts of data to a target's servers in an effort to overwhelm them. | Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are caused by what can be thousands of computers sending huge amounts of data to a target's servers in an effort to overwhelm them. |
This sometimes involves hijacked PCs - whose owners may be unaware of their involvement - in what is known as a botnet. | This sometimes involves hijacked PCs - whose owners may be unaware of their involvement - in what is known as a botnet. |
This is not the first time Evernote has been compromised. In 2013 it said hackers had managed to access user names, email addresses and encrypted passwords. | |
However, it appears that the latest cyber-assault is more limited. | However, it appears that the latest cyber-assault is more limited. |
Spokeswoman Ronda Scott told the BBC that the cyber-assault, caused by an unknown perpetrator, began at 14:25 local time [22:25 BST] on Tuesday and had not yet ended. | Spokeswoman Ronda Scott told the BBC that the cyber-assault, caused by an unknown perpetrator, began at 14:25 local time [22:25 BST] on Tuesday and had not yet ended. |
"We continue to mitigate the effects of the attack, but have successfully returned Evernote to service," she added. | "We continue to mitigate the effects of the attack, but have successfully returned Evernote to service," she added. |
"As is the nature of DDoS attacks, there was no data loss, and no accounts were compromised." | "As is the nature of DDoS attacks, there was no data loss, and no accounts were compromised." |