Social networking site Bluesky says its recent day-long disruption was caused by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that flooded the site with junk traffic. The social network confirmed the incident in a post on Monday, confirming the attack had taken place over the previous 24 hours.
“We have upgraded our defenses in response, and we continue to monitor the situation,” Bluesky said in a post, without disclosing any more details.
A spokesperson for Bluesky did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s questions about the attack.
DDoS attacks involve pummeling a website or server with large amounts of junk traffic with the aim of overloading its resources and knocking it offline. These kinds of attacks often rely on using large amounts of hijacked internet-connected devices — enlisted into a residential proxy network or a botnet — to harness their unused internet bandwidth to flood web servers.
Security researchers discussing the attacks in the IFIN public forum report that Iran-backed attackers have claimed responsibility for the attack. Iran has increased its attacks on U.S. businesses and critical infrastructure since the start of the U.S. and Israel-led war earlier this year.
This is the latest large-scale DDoS attack to affect the social networking site in recent months. In April, the site was hit by a prolonged series of outages caused by a similar flood of web traffic. It’s unclear if the attacks are linked.
