Could a virus shutdown Google? Options

[ac]

Is it possible that a nasty virus could shut down the Linux based Google data centers.

This very issue is raised in the following article.

Is this hype or might this be possible?

Your thoughts and input are needed.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1619714,00.asp

[Eddie]

It is possible, but not terribly likely.

All operating systems are open to attacks. Computer systems in thsi respect, are no different to real world ones. Thieves have in the past broken into the bank of England and Fort Knox. You just have to ballance the effort and money it would take to do it as opposed the what the culprit would gain from it.

[bwelford]

That's an interesting article, ac. It raises in my mind the whole issue of sources of information and who will believe what. The various urban legends that take flight show how much momentum can develop if something is the least bit credible. Of course, the Internet is now a powerful vehicle to ensure urban legends can travel even faster.

The other side to this coin though, is that at least these matters keep people on their toes. If you never hear of possible dangers, you become comfortable and then get a huge shock when something untoward happens to you. I'm sure that "Google" reads such an article and someone in there checks out "What if it's true? How do we protect ourselves?"

[Grumpus]

I not sure I understand the spin, here. As mentioned above, everything is vulnerable to attacks from ne'er-do-wells. And, this article isn't about Google being vulnerable, it's about a smear marketing campaign (possibly one that's secretly backed by Microsoft).

It's just as possible that a nasty virus could bring down www.searchenginesinternational.com - your site, which also runs on a Linux box. What would happen to you if that happened?

It's also just as possible (and likely) that a nasty virus could bring down www.cre8asite.net or MSN search - both sites that run on Windows environments.

The question isn't "What would happen to Google?" but "What would happen to Linux if a virus hit a site as large as Google is?" or for that matter, "What would happen to Microsoft if a virus brought down MSN?"

This article is talking about negative marketing campaigns. It's not a security issue at all - it only mentions security in the context that Linux competitors are saying that it's not secure and giving some plausible reasons for the speculation. (Whereas, we KNOW that Windows isn't secure or they wouldn't be putting out a new security patch every other week). The ploy, here, is to make sure that all the negative security press MS has been getting lately (including a governmental recomendation in the US to make sure you use a firewall and antivirus software as well as a recomendation to switch to web browser other than IE), is balanced by press that switching to Linux isn't necessarily any safer a prospect.

Rather than worrying about what would happen to Google if a virus hit, I'd worry about seeing what my own hosting company is doing to help protect me from getting hit by a virus. And, I'd also consider that negative marketing campaigns aren't always rooted in truth, nor ethical values. They are invariably a version of the truth carefully tailored to sway opinion in a precisely calculated direction. It's marketing - it's not a set of honest to goodness tangible facts.

G.

[sn3]

I doubt it, they have tons of servers. If they go down they will be back up very quickly.

[ac]

Grumpus, so you think that the war is on by your statements?

Public relations by and through PC Magazine, well I know you don't think much of the sensational articles that ZDnet publishes, but they sure do generate interest.

It is a good way to get all of this in front of the forum, it is good for the forum to generate interest also. How can we know the future or if these articles are the truth, like you say there is a bit of truth in any statement depending on how you wish to look at it.

Getting back to hosting, most hosts would never tell you if your site was knocked out by a virus anyway since it may well lose them a lot of customers.

The question the article raises in my mind would be this, can Linux be taken out by a virus attack?

Next if my little site went down no one would write about it, but if Google went down, that would have a major impact on the internet community.

[Grumpus]

Grumpus, so you think that the war is on by your statements?

I'm not sure I think there's any more of a war on now than there was a year ago. Windows and Linux, as competitors, have always been positioning themselves to look like a better solution than the other one - that's the nature of business. There are as many arguments as to why Linux is more secure, more stable, and each of the other things. Microsoft has even come under fire for stealing personel and code from competing companies in the past, as well.

but they sure do generate interest.

Sure they do - but you're reading a lot more into this article than is really there. It's an article about marketing, not the general state of computer security.

Getting back to hosting, most hosts would never tell you if your site was knocked out by a virus

I beg to differ. Over my lifetime on the Internet (since the early 90's) there have been numerous occassions where a site I've worked on has been hacked. I'm not certain I can think of a time when an actual virus was launched, but even Cre8asite Forums had an incident where some silly hackers came in and changed our front page to some graffiti thing. In every case, customers were informed that the server had been hacked, and that the security hole was being identified and plugged. And, in every case, that hosting company fixed the hole quickly and efficiently and that same hacking attempt was never successfully executed again.

When you see that your site isn't working, you know that something is up. It does a host no good to try and hide that someone found an exploit. People feel more secure knowing that there was a problem, it's been identified, and it has been fixed than they are to hear, "We don't know what happened. We're looking into it. Don't worry." (Sorry, any time someone tells me not to worry, I start to worry.)

The question the article raises in my mind would be this, can Linux be taken out by a virus attack?

Yup. A server running Linux can likely be taken out by a virus attack - though it may be Apache or some other software running on it that actually allows the person in. But, the same is true for a system running Windows or even a Mac OS. Basically, "if it exists, it can be exploited." That's a fact of life. The trick is to minimize risk.

but if Google went down, that would have a major impact on the internet community.

For a couple of hours it might. Google, like any major company, has a contingent plan in place. There's a set of procedures for each possible thing that can happen. So, if someone got a virus on their network, there's a protocol for isolating the machines that are infected (to keep it from spreading further) and another protocol in place for getting replacement machines online in a very short period of time.

You probably don't have such a plan in place - and if your host is a small one, they may not either. It'd be far more devastating for long term impact to launch an attack against a hundred or so small hosting providers since it may take a while to track and react, and it could very well be weeks before the problem was fixed.

Hit google and yeah, you may bring it down for a little bit - but it would be back up fast enough that Google might even be able to get the story up on their own web site faster than other news sources were even brought into awareness that anything happened. Do it to you or me, and we're down and out for a good long while.

G.

[Adrian]

I hate negative marketting, politics is full of it and I just think tis a really bad way to go about things.

most hosts would never tell you if your site was knocked out by a virus anyway since it may well lose them a lot of customers.

I don't see that. My hosts had a few problems a while ago with attacks on their system, it knocked mine and many other sites offline for a while. I was quite pleased that they sent an email explaining what had happened, the steps they took to fix it and the extra pro-active steps they took to stop it happening again.

Great customer service IMO.

The question the article raises in my mind would be this, can Linux be taken out by a virus attack?

Yes, its going to prone to specially written viruses, simple as that.

[Adrian]

Oh, and maybe it's worth you visiting http://vil.nai.com/vil/default.asp and doing a search for the text "linux" in the "Search for Viruses" box. Have a look at the list of results.

[ac]

G, you would know much more about these things than most of us since you run a hosting company, thank you for the input, where is your hosting company link in your signature, I was looking for it?

[Grumpus]

I don't really run a hosting company, per say. I've got a reseller agreement with a great company and I'll often package hosting services along with jobs I do, but I don't really solicit walk-in customers for it. The site is at www.webstocknet.com - but, bear in mind, the site is really garbage and incomplete. It's sort of like the "auto-mechanic" syndome - your auto mechanic always has a beat up and crummy car because they spend so much time working on other people's stuff that the last thing they want to do when they get home from work is tinker around with their own car.

I think anyone who's had a web site for more than 5 years or so has had some experience with site hackers at one level or another. It may not always be noticable right away though - maybe they hacked into your form mailing script and are using your SMTP bandwidth so they don't have to pay for their own, or maybe they've hacked into your FTP and uploaded some pictures so they don't have to pay the bandwidth. And so on.

G.

[morow]

http://google-blog.dirson.com/post.new/0150/

[cre8pc]

I just caught this on CNN, here in the US. They showed a screenshot, and suggested "hackers took down Google".

I can access it just fine, in Pennsylvania.

[morow]

Yep. This is not a hacking attack. I guess Google's just blocking some users.

[bwelford]

It's supposed to be caused by a variant of the MyDoom virus that is causing massive volumes of searches for perhaps several of the major search engines. I am getting partially blocked results.

When it happens you get the following error message:
Server Error
The service you requested is not available at this time.

Service error -27.

[ac]

Article on the issue


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3927963.stm

[ITGProductions]

Follow Up: http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/inde...showtopic=12835

Sorry missed this thread first time through...