Friday's cyber attacks a 'wake-up call' for insurers and public alike

Waves of DDoS attacks shut down swatches of the internet on Friday, prompting the need for the insurance industry to issue standard cyber liability coverage forms.

By Melissa Hillebrand | Updated on October 21, 2016

Waves of online attacks on Domain Name Server (DNS) provider Dyn Inc. blocked access to Twitter, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, Tumblr, Reddit, The New York Times and various other sites throughout Friday — an attack that Andrew C. Harris, CEO of brokerage Liberty Insurance Associates in Millstone Township, N.J., calls “overdue.”

The cause was a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against Dyn, which as a DNS facilitates the loading of webpages. According to USA Today, the hackers used the malware program Mirai, which can send thousands and even hundreds of thousands of server requests at once, creating a flood of fake traffic and overwhelming a DNS.

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