Computerworld - The same denial-of-service attack that took down Twitter this morning also slammed Facebook but with much less dramatic results.
Facebook noted on its site this afternoon that it too was fending off a distributed denial-of-service attack that was slowing its site. Unlike Twitter, which was down for two hours this morning, Facebook remained online.
"You may have had trouble accessing Facebook earlier today because of network issues related to an apparent distributed denial-of-service attack," the company wrote. "We have restored full access for most people. We'll keep monitoring the situation to make sure you have the reliable experience you expect from us."
Web site performance monitor AlertSite reported that Twitter's site wasn't back 100% until 2 p.m. EDT. AlertSite also noted that Facebook appeared to suffer little more than a few sporadic errors. Facebook's availability was at 97% at 10 a.m. when the attack was underway, and it was up to 100% availability soon after that.
While there's little more than online chatter and guesswork about the origins of the attacks, security analysts say the incident raises red flags that two giant Internet companies, like Twitter and Facebook would be hit in the same assault.
Randy Abrams, director of technical education at ESET, an IT security company based in Bratislava, Slovakia, said his best guess is that a major botnet herder was offering a demonstration of the power of his botnet to a potential client with a major target in mind.
"They could have been saying, 'Look what I can do to Twitter. I think my botnet can handle whatever you want it to do,'" said Abrams. "I'd put my money on this being a demonstration, a show of force, by someone looking to hire out their botnet."
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, told Computerworld that whoever launched the attacks should beware the clout of those he's going after.
"Anything is possible, and we could make guesses like this until the cows come home ... We simply don't have enough information yet to be certain as to what the motivation was," he said. "One thing is certain -- if they did do this as a demonstration of how powerful their botnet is, they've just made themselves some new and angry enemies in the shape of some major Web 2.0 companies. I wouldn't be surprised if the computer crime authorities put some serious effort into trying to track down whoever was responsible. After all, if they can bring down social networking sites they can bring down banking sites."
Cluley also said it's not yet clear why Facebook faired so much better than Twitter. It could have been that the bulk of the assault was aimed at Twitter or that their defenses simply weren't as tough.
The attack against Twitter brought the site down between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. EDT this morning. This afternoon, the microblogging site was still struggling with slowdowns and interruptions caused by the assault.
"As we recover, users will experience some longer load times and slowness," Twitter reported in its status update at 12:46 p.m. EDT. "This includes timeouts to API clients. We're working to get back to 100% as quickly as we can." The company had not posted another update by 3:30 p.m.
Oddly enough, even though the attack hit both Twitter and Facebook, while Twitter was down, frustrated users vented on Facebook. One Facebook user noted, "Suffering tweet withdrawal."
DDoS attack that downed Twitter also hit Facebook
Facebook attracting more users with gray hair, wrinkles
Computerworld - Facebook is growing in popularity and its users are growing long in the tooth, according to a study released this week.
A report released by iStrategyLabs show that while the number of Facebook's U.S. high school and college-age users declined over the past six months, its popularity among the 55-and-older crowd is booming. In fact, the number of 55-and-older Facebook users showed staggering growth -- 513.7% -- in the last six months, the digital consulting firm said.
This isn't a new phenomenon for Facebook. In March, Hitwise Pty. reported that the social network's audience of people over the ripe old age of 35 increased by 23% in February compared with the same month last year. While Facebook was first launched to serve college students, over the past year or so the network has expanded to include many middle-aged folks.
While social networking sites were thought to be the domain of teenagers wanting to talk about school dances and their latest favorite band, it now looks like a quickly growing number of people on Facebook are closer to receiving their first copy of AARP than they are to taking their first college class.
The iStrategyLabs report also shows a 190.2% growth in the 35- to 54-year-old category.
Facebook isn't the only social network attracting older users.
A comScore, Inc. report released in April showed that people aged 45 to 54 are 36% more likely than other age group to use the Twitter microblogging site. That category is the biggest user of Twitter, followed by those aged 25 to 34, who are 30% more likely to Tweet out updates about their life and work.
And the news isn't just about older users joining social networking sites. Part of it about asking where the younger users are going?
The iStrategyLabs report notes that students are apparently fleeing Facebook. The report shows that Facebook has 16.5% fewer high school students on it and 21.7% fewer college students than six months ago.
"There have been rumors that these younger user groups are being alienated by their parents joining the service, and this data seems to prove it," said Peter Corbett, CEO of iStrategyLabs in a blog post.
Overall, Facebook showed strong growth over the last six months, with the number of U.S.-based users up 70.8%. And, ccording to iStrategyLabs, 54.6% of the social networking site's users are female.
