Popular social networking sites Twitter and Facebook were recovering
today, after being subject to the most widespread and coordinated
online cyber-attack ever.
Free micro-blogging service Twitter stopped functioning due to a malicious
'denial of service attack' at around 3pm for several hours, while
Facebook struggled with a slow and 'degraded' service.
Now industry figures have revealed the strikes, which affected hundreds
of millions of web users, could have been an attempt to silence just
one person.
Facebook's chief security officer Max Kelly, told CNet news the attack
seemed to be against a controversial Georgian blogger known as Cyxymu,
who has accounts with Facebook and Twitter.
He is an outspoken critic of the conflict between Georgia and Russia in South Ossetia - which is coming up to its first anniversary.
