The cyberattacks that caused widespread internet disruptions in North America and Europe last month will be the subject of a congressional hearing next week, lawmakers said Wednesday.
Members of two key House subcommittee devoted to technology matters will discuss the recent unprecedented distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks waged against Dyn, a U.S.-based Domain Name System (DNS) provider, the Energy and Commerce Committee said in an announcement Wednesday. Witnesses for Nov. 16 hearing have not yet been revealed.
Hackers managed to disrupt internet access for millions on Oct. 21 by using infected internet-connected devices to attack Dyn, crippling its DNS service and making it difficult for computer users to access some of the world’s most popular websites.
Security researchers said the historic attacks were made possible after hackers compromised potentially millions of common devices like digital video recorders and webcams and then used these “botnets” of infected items to wage repeated assaults against Dyn.
Next week’s hearing will “examine how Internet of Things (IOT) connected devices are used in cyberattacks to deny access to popular websites or otherwise disrupt online services,” the Energy and Commerce Committee said in its announcement.
“Internet connectivity remains a vital part of our economic well-being and our national security. Americans should not have to worry that the convenience and connectivity of the Internet of Things comes at the expense of the resiliency and reliability of the larger Internet,” Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon and Rep. Michael C. Burgess of Texas, both Republicans, said in a joint statement. The lawmakers chair the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology and Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, respectively.
“Next week’s hearing provides our members with an opportunity to learn more about the recent cyberattacks, how cyberattacks are evolving and what can be done to mitigate future attacks and risks,” the lawmakers said.
Researchers have said that similar DDoS attacks have been waged using IoT devices following last month’s assault, including a campaign that briefly disrupted internet access across the entirety of the nation of Liberia. More recently, Kaspersky Labs said this week that five of Russia’s ten largest banks were targeted in a similar DDoS attack waged by IoT devices on Thursday, “the first large-scale wave of DDoS attacks aimed at Russian banks this year.”
State-sponsored hackers likely weren’t behind the Dyn attacks, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said last month. Flashpoint, a business risk intelligence firm that’s analyzed the attacks, agrees the DDoS attacks were “most likely not politically motivated, and most likely not nation-state actors.”
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