Data Foundry Blog

A massive DDoS attack on DNS provider Dyn last Friday resulted in limited or no access for many users on major websites and platforms such as Twitter, Pardot, Spotify, New York Times, Netflix, SoundCloud and other popular websites. (Learn more about DNS in our ICANN article.) The attack was conducted using a self-replicating botnet called Mirai to infect devices connected to the Internet. Tens of millions of IP addresses were associated with the attack. This is not the first time a DNS network has fallen under attack – NSI experienced a massive, combination DDoS attack back in May that involved simple volumetric attacks to complex DNS lookup attacks.

Many of our customers have come to us with questions about HIPAA-compliant cloud storage. There’s a lot of marketing rhetoric online about HIPAA-certified Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and other types of certified providers for that matter. First of all, there is no such thing as an official HIPAA certification. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the organization that enforces HIPAA, does not provide HIPAA certifications, nor does it require them. This doesn’t mean that a CSP cannot be HIPAA-compliant, only that HHS does not guarantee their compliance. Also, no matter what type of certification a CSP claims to have, compliance is ultimately up to you, the “covered entity” or health services provider.