GitHub is currently experiencing, what the company itself acknowledges as “the largest DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack in github.com’s history”. At the time of writing this story, GitHub was accessible to us under its normal response time, do comment below to tell us whether you can access the repository or not.
The attack began around 2AM UTC on Thursday, March 26, and involves a wide combination of attack vectors. GitHub says, These attacks include every vector the site has seen in previous attacks as well as some sophisticated new techniques that use the web browsers of unsuspecting, uninvolved people to flood github.com with high levels of traffic.
As for a possible motive behind the attacks, GitHub says,
Based on reports we’ve received, we believe the intent of this attack is to convince us to remove a specific class of content.
However, numerous reports have confirmed that the attack has something to do with China. Further reports have revealed that the attack which started on Wednesday, emanated from scripts belonging to the internet giant Baidu. The scripts began directing useless traffic to two specific GitHub pages: one run by GreatFire, and the other offering translations of The New York Times, in the process bringing the entire GitHub down.
However, Baidu has denied any involvement in the ongoing attacks, saying,
We’ve notified other security organizations and are working together to get to the bottom of this.
You can go to Github’s status site or follow @githubstatus on Twitter for real-time updates.
