Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) may want to take note. China’s largest search engine, Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU), was taken down by hackers and several reports say users were pointed to an “Iranian Cyber Army” web page.
The frequency with which sites like Twitter are being taken down is growing. Hackers have become more sophisticated and are better able to break into the servers on which run almost all large sites
Software engineers from North Korea took down a number of public and government sites in the US last year. Hackers from inside the nation of Georgia were able to slow the Facebook service in August.
Hackers have also put parts of the banking industry at risk. One at least two occasions in 2009 software experts were able to get into US financial firm records and ATMs to steal money.
It appears that the number of online “rogues” who have the skill to attack websites has increased. That is a side effect of the internet being an open system and the inability of security software companies to keep up with the most expert of malicious programmers.
It is becoming more likely that a huge service like Google or Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)will be taken down. Hackers could end up being the biggest single threat that consumer and business reliance on the internet faces.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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