Several weeks ago, you may have heard about or have even been affected a malicious virus utilizing smart phones and other devises and services.
Emergency 911 call centers located in at least 12 different U.S. states, including Arizona, Washington and California, were recently the target of a widespread distributed denial of service attack that disrupted normal services, Department of Homeland Security officials tell CyberScoop.
The teenager’s computer virus spread like wildfire because it was shared multiple times over by social media users on Twitter and YouTube, among other platforms. As a result, in a short period of time, the malware-laden link was quickly clicked numerous times by different people across the internet in different U.S. states.
Each DDoS attack relied upon a network of infected iPhones. Once compromised, the smartphone would automatically and repetitively send calls to the nearest emergency call center.
A teenage hacker arrested in Arizona’s Maricopa County is supposedly responsible for originally creating and then sharing the malware used to infect the devices. This virus — which when downloaded would gain total access of a device — was spread through people sharing it on social media and several other websites, investigators said. One of the websites that hosted the computer virus had reached nearly 150,000 page views before being shut down.
If you have any questions about your network, firewalls or other security concerns, call Dave at 800-987-0100
