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Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outages

independent.co.uk

211–220 of 254 posts

Re: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outages

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of my VPS servers have been slammed in the last 5 days with bruteforce SSH attacks. I've never seen anything this aggressive. One of my servers got PWNed, which has never happened to me before. There's definitely some wild, shady shit going on.

I highly recommend installing fail2ban to automatically firewall IPs with consecutive failed attempts, or if possible, disable password authentication altogether and use key auth.

You can also setup a VPN and limit all port 22 activity to your VPNs IP.

Re: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outages

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several european banks are also having issues with their login sites and online services. Backends are working though. I know, it's far fetched to throw them in the same bucket, and I won't, but it feels like there is happening some kind of reorganization on the net, which in the worst case would be some kind of global state-sponsored MITM-layer getting set up, maybe to prepare for new techs like 5G and TLS1.3.

My metaphorical tinfoil hat tells me that all the sudden security meetings yesterday (Putin, European Security Council, US VP Pence) were about this.

And on top of that highly classified Russian submarine allegedly used to tap on undersea cables has sunk on Monday.

Re: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outages

#213
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the options are: 1) a secret cyber-war is going on... 2) Some entity is installing new spying slurps 3) An (critical) IX that we werent aware of is having major issues... and we dont know who to blame on that one...

4) People love to find patterns where none exist

5) patterns exist and people who have been online for decades can see them.

(Your HN account is 4 months old. Mine is ten years old)

Re: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outages

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I started wondering the last few minutes : what if the next worldwar would start on the internet? Or is this a common assumption already? I had not connected Huawei to my conspiracy theory yet, but just did.

You might love Neal Stephenson's latest book "Fall, or Dodge In Hell" It's not quite about a world war on the Internet, but it is about what could happen if the Internet suddenly stops working somewhere.

Nitpick, but it's:

Fall; or, Dodge in Hell

Re: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outages

#215
post #6

I find the outages of the last few days a curious coincidence : Slack, Google, Cloudflare, Azure, now FB. edit : added Slack after @kache_ mentioned it, added Azure after stevehubertron mentioned it.

If I would take a wild guess : it's the heat waves. They drain people's concentration...

Re: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outages

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solid advice. I had fail2ban installed and enabled. SSHD Root/password login turned off and only ssh key had access. My firewall was also airtight, or so I thought. Clearly I mucked up a config or setting somewhere because the odds of someone getting past all that are extremely low. One thing I had not prepared for was IP spoofing which I learned can be prevented with a few net.ipv4.conf tweaks. I also just purchased…

What was the vector by which they gained access? I have fail2ban, password login turned off, key access, airtight firewall, etc. and now am worried.

Me too

Re: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outages

#217
post #6

I find the outages of the last few days a curious coincidence : Slack, Google, Cloudflare, Azure, now FB. edit : added Slack after @kache_ mentioned it, added Azure after stevehubertron mentioned it.

There was a huge Comcast outage in the bay area last week as well, although most people probably didn't notice since it happened at night.

Re: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outages

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add Azure to the list. Its routing was down for about 2 hours yesterday.

Actually, I started wondering the last few minutes : what if the next worldwar would start on the internet? Or is this a common assumption already? I had not connected Huawei to my conspiracy theory yet, but just did.

People would start by attacking telecoms much like they used to start with rail and harbours.

Re: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outages

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could be done simply by creating a new user with your super long password. Lock down ssh so you can only log in as this user, and let them `sudo su` into your normal working user.

I mean, yeah, but I don't want to do that. Partially because I don't want the friction, and partially because that won't work with any other tools that tunnel over ssh (e.g. sftp).

There will be friction, but sftp and port tunneling - which are my most used fwatures besides plain ssh - should be possible?

I mean either you sftp to a shared folder that can be accessed from your regular user as well or you use a staging area with a cron job (or you load/unload the staging area manually.)

Re: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outages

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, yeah, but I don't want to do that. Partially because I don't want the friction, and partially because that won't work with any other tools that tunnel over ssh (e.g. sftp).

There will be friction, but sftp and port tunneling - which are my most used fwatures besides plain ssh - should be possible ? I mean either you sftp to a shared folder that can be accessed from your regular user as well or you use a staging area with a cron job (or you load/unload the staging area manually.)

If I'm sftp'ing to my server it's because I want to access my files. Not a special shared folder that I then have to separately ssh in, su to the real user, and move into place.

I'm not deploying a website so a staging area isn't applicable. This is just a VPS that I use for various purposes.

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