Relax — There Was No Large-Scale DDoS Attack

If you aren’t a cybersecurity expert, then don’t believe everything that hacktivist group Anonymous posts on Twitter.

Yes, some services were down simultaneously for some reason yesterday, but it wasn’t because of a single coordinated DDoS attack, according to cybersecurity experts.

Early yesterday, people across the U.S. were posting to social media that they weren’t able to make calls, send text messages or access other services. Even internet service providers, social media platforms, online gaming and other services were impacted, Forbes reported.

That list included T-Mobile, Fortnite, Instagram, Comcast, Chase Bank and others.

A twitter account allegedly associated with Anonymous tweeted that the country was under a major DDoS attack. That tweet even included an ominous map that showed a supposed influx of traffic to the U.S. from other countries.

With millions of Twitter followers, that news spread like wildfire on social media. Pretty soon, headlines were about the largest ever DDoS attack ever.

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However, that map was essentially a random sample of DDoS traffic and didn’t indicate anything out of the ordinary, Forbes reported.

Other cybersecurity and DDoS experts told Forbes that there was no evidence of a significant, large-scale DDoS attack.

Much of the speculation was around T-Mobile’s outages, but that was due to poorly executed maintenance on the carrier’s network, Newsweek reported.

Meanwhile, both AT&T and Verizon reported normal operations, according to Newsweek.

Both publications cited cybersecurity expert Marcus Hutchins, who quickly threw water on the sensational idea that multiple companies and services were being targeted.

T-Mobile outage means everyone using them can’t access any websites, leading to reports that facebook, twitter, instagram are all down (they’re not). Customers also can’t call/be called by other providers, leading to reports other providers are down too (they’re not).

— MalwareTech (@MalwareTechBlog) June 15, 2020

This is a reminder to rely on only trusted sources and vetted, public cybersecurity experts and not a shadowy organization with unknown backers.