It’s Not Just Twitter’s Problem: What Insurers Need To Know About DDoS Attacks

On Friday October 21, the Internet flickered: a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) disrupted access to some of the Internet’s most important commercial sites, including Twitter, PayPal, Reddit, Netflix, Spotify, Comcast and Verizon. The attack was especially successful because it attacked a major domain name system (DNS) provider, Dyn, and because it operated through malware that dragooned Internet of Things (IoT) devices into a botnet that executed the directed DDoS attack. The attack was a reminder about known vulnerabilities of IoT devices; it was also a wake-up call for the insurance industry at a time when the IoT seems a very promising strategic direction for the industry.