Hacktivists have claimed responsibility for taking down the public-facing infrastructure of popular Linux operating system distribution Ubuntu, as well as Canonical, the company that develops and maintains the software.
The attack began on Thursday and affected services that Ubuntu users rely on. Canonical said on its website: "Canonical's web infrastructure is under a sustained, cross-border attack and we are working to address it."
Ubuntu developers have been discussing the attack on community forums, claiming that the DDoS affects Ubuntu's security API and several Ubuntu and Canonical websites. According to a post on a threat intelligence forum, the attack has also made it impossible for users to update and install Ubuntu.
As of this writing, the outage has been ongoing for around 20 hours. Canonical did not respond to a request for comment.
Hacktivists calling themselves The Islamic Cyber Resistance in Iraq 313 Team claimed on its Telegram channel that it was to blame for the DDoS attack. The hackers claimed to be using Beamed, a DDoS-for-hire service that claims to power attacks in excess of 3.5 Tbps.
The attack highlights the ongoing security challenges faced by open-source software providers and the potential impact of DDoS attacks on critical infrastructure.
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