Incident: DDoS Attack on FCC's Online Comments System After John Oliver's Show

Published Date: 2017-05-08

Postmortem Analysis
Timeline 1. The software failure incident happened on Sunday night at midnight, as mentioned in Article [59099]. Therefore, the estimated timeline for the software failure incident would be Sunday night at midnight before the article was published on 2017-05-08.
System 1. FCC's online comments system [Article 59099]
Responsible Organization 1. External actors conducting distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks [59099]
Impacted Organization 1. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) [Article 59099]
Software Causes 1. The software causes of the failure incident were orchestrated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the FCC's online comments system [Article 59099].
Non-software Causes 1. Orchestrated denial-of-service attacks [Article 59099] 2. Deliberate attempts by external actors to bombard the FCC's comment system with a high amount of traffic [Article 59099]
Impacts 1. The FCC's online comments system became unreachable after the attack, impacting the ability of users to submit comments [Article 59099]. 2. The orchestrated denial-of-service attacks tied up the servers, preventing them from responding to people attempting to submit comments [Article 59099].
Preventions 1. Implementing robust DDoS protection measures to mitigate and prevent distributed denial-of-service attacks like the one experienced by the FCC's comment system [Article 59099].
Fixes 1. Implementing robust DDoS protection measures to prevent future denial-of-service attacks on the FCC's comment system [59099].
References 1. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) [Article 59099] 2. Comedian John Oliver [Article 59099] 3. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai [Article 59099] 4. David Bray, FCC Chief Information Officer [Article 59099] 5. Evan Greer, campaign director for internet activist group Fight for the Future [Article 59099]

Software Taxonomy of Faults

Category Option Rationale
Recurring one_organization (a) The software failure incident related to the FCC's online comments system being attacked after John Oliver's call for comments on net neutrality rules is an example of a similar incident happening again within the same organization. Three years prior to this incident, a similar situation occurred when John Oliver's call for tough "net neutrality" rules also led to a surge in comments to the FCC [Article 59099].
Phase (Design/Operation) design (a) The software failure incident in Article 59099 was related to the design phase. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reported that their online comments system became unreachable due to orchestrated denial-of-service attacks, which were deliberate attempts by external actors to bombard the FCC's comment system with a high amount of traffic [59099]. This indicates that the failure was due to contributing factors introduced by the system design or development, as the attacks targeted the system itself rather than issues related to its operation or misuse.
Boundary (Internal/External) within_system, outside_system (a) The software failure incident reported in Article 59099 falls under the category of within_system failure. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) stated that their online comments system became unreachable due to orchestrated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The attacks were deliberate attempts by external actors to bombard the FCC's comment system with a high amount of traffic, which tied up the servers and prevented them from responding to people attempting to submit comments. This indicates that the failure originated from within the system, specifically due to the DDoS attacks targeting the FCC's infrastructure [59099].
Nature (Human/Non-human) non-human_actions (a) The software failure incident in Article 59099 was attributed to non-human actions, specifically orchestrated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The FCC's comment system became unreachable due to deliberate attempts by external actors to bombard the system with a high amount of traffic, tying up the servers and preventing them from responding to users attempting to submit comments [59099].
Dimension (Hardware/Software) software (a) The software failure incident in Article 59099 was not attributed to hardware issues. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reported that their online comments system became unreachable due to orchestrated denial-of-service attacks, which were deliberate attempts by external actors to bombard the FCC's comment system with a high amount of traffic to their commercial cloud host. This indicates that the failure originated from external attacks targeting the software system rather than hardware issues [59099].
Objective (Malicious/Non-malicious) malicious (a) The software failure incident related to the FCC's online comments system being attacked was malicious in nature. The incident was attributed to orchestrated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which were deliberate attempts by external actors to bombard the FCC's comment system with a high amount of traffic to their commercial cloud host [59099].
Intent (Poor/Accidental Decisions) unknown (a) The intent of the software failure incident was not due to poor decisions but rather deliberate actions by external actors. The FCC reported that the online comments system was attacked through orchestrated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which were deliberate attempts to bombard the FCC's comment system with a high amount of traffic [Article 59099].
Capability (Incompetence/Accidental) unknown (a) The software failure incident related to development incompetence is not evident from the provided article. (b) The software failure incident was attributed to orchestrated denial-of-service attacks, specifically distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The FCC's comment system became unreachable due to deliberate attempts by external actors to bombard the system with a high amount of traffic, tying up the servers and preventing them from responding to people attempting to submit comments [59099].
Duration temporary The software failure incident reported in Article 59099 was temporary. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mentioned that their online comments system became unreachable after the call from John Oliver's show, attributing the issues to orchestrated denial-of-service attacks [59099]. The FCC's chief information officer, David Bray, stated that the FCC was subject to multiple distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) beginning on Sunday night at midnight, which deliberately bombarded the FCC's comment system with a high amount of traffic to their commercial cloud host, tying up the servers and preventing them from responding to people attempting to submit comments [59099]. This indicates that the software failure incident was temporary and caused by specific external factors (DDoS attacks) rather than being a permanent failure.
Behaviour crash, other (a) crash: The software failure incident in the article can be categorized as a crash. The FCC's comment system became unreachable after the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, indicating a failure due to the system losing its state and not performing its intended functions [59099]. (b) omission: There is no specific mention of the software failure incident being related to the system omitting to perform its intended functions at an instance(s) in the articles. (c) timing: The incident is not described as a failure due to the system performing its intended functions correctly, but too late or too early. (d) value: The failure is not attributed to the system performing its intended functions incorrectly. (e) byzantine: The software failure incident does not exhibit behavior of the system behaving erroneously with inconsistent responses and interactions. (f) other: The behavior of the software failure incident in the article can be categorized as a deliberate denial-of-service attack orchestrated by external actors to bombard the FCC's comment system with a high amount of traffic, preventing it from responding to people attempting to submit comments [59099].

IoT System Layer

Layer Option Rationale
Perception None None
Communication None None
Application None None

Other Details

Category Option Rationale
Consequence delay (property) The consequence of the software failure incident in this case was related to the impact on people's ability to submit comments to the FCC. The distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the FCC's comment system tied up the servers and prevented individuals from submitting comments, thus affecting their ability to provide feedback to the agency [59099].
Domain information, government (a) The failed system was intended to support the industry of information, specifically related to the Federal Communications Commission's online comments system [59099].

Sources

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