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Today started very strangely. I could not pull up Twitter. Then all my card links failed all at once (no they did not drop the blog as an affiliate). I e-mailed Gary from A View From The Wing as I could not pull up some of his links either. He said his were fine and he could pull up all of mine as well. Just what was going on?
We now know it was a worldwide massive DDoS or Denial of Service attack on one of the big hubs that routes internet addresses around the world.
Throughout the day the attacks have worked their way from east to west, but the really strange part was that my Comcast could not access Twitter at all but my Sprint phone could. That got me thinking and I fired up my VPN or Virtual Private Network from Tunnel Bear <-LINK on my PC (something I normally only do from my phone or laptop when on the road for safety).
Low and behold, once I changed my “location” to Sweden (a good choice due to sick fast internet speeds), I was able to access Twitter or anything else I wanted at very good speeds.
This goes to show that in today’s tech world we need to stay a step ahead. We should all be using VPNs when NOT on a secure WiFi access point but today’s attack gives us another way to keep working and a solid workaround to attacks like these.
Bottom line, have you tested Tunnel Bear yet? If not – you should NOW! – René
Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
Just the laughs I got from TunnelBear’s graphics made it worthwhile. Thanks!
PS – Voting early and voting often at USAToday.