WordPress Collapses Under DDOS Attack

I noticed a few WordPress blogs I visit were running slowly (problem is, if you mention it to any of those bloggers, "Lady Java" comes to mind, they interpret your comment as a personal attack)... WordPress suspects the DDOS attack was aimed at one of their non-English blogs, and didn’t identify the blog.

The offensive against the planet's biggest blogging platform involved tens of millions of packets per second and lasted for about two hours, according to a statement on parent company Automattic's status page. The size and scope of the strike indicates that it was launched by a major botnet.

Some users said WP had been running unusually slowly for as long as three days.

WordPress parent company Automattic is warning customers that the attack could resume at any time.

This is BIG important news, as CNN, Techrunch and Microsoft’s Windows Live blogs all run on WP and could experience a recurrence of the collapse at any time.

I wonder: could this be a "test run" to see if the internet could be disabled in selective parts by nations where political turmoil breaks out? We know already that Egyptians credit social network Facebook with the changes that have taken place across North Africa.

Somewhat Related:

Gathering to Celebrate Internet Access in Cambodia

Several sources from Twitter confirm that Google SSL has been interfered by the Great Fire Wall in China. Access to Gmail, GTalk and Google Reader becomes extremely slow. Google's server in Korea (74.125.153.113) is blocked 20-29 mins and 50-59 mins in every hour.

Tags: WordPress, WordPress DDOS