The Industry Standard - Amazon.com offline (back now!) - Comments

There's unconfirmed talk

Ian Lamont520988 — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:25:53 -0700

There's unconfirmed talk about this being tied into a DDoS attack, according to InformationWeek.

Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard

It's responding with a web

Eric — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:04:50 -0700

It's responding with a web server error message -- the DNS didn't get hacked... it resolves just fine if you ping it.

You can also access the Amazon website through HTTPS --> https://www.amazon.com/

your "update" with

ryan nelson — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:02:23 -0700

your "update" with conjecture that it's DNS based is really, really uninformed.

try your "whois" test with microsoft.com or apple.com ... it's the same thing.

your awareness of how the version of the "whois" command operates is the only thing that's been compromised.

So, what does "whois

MikeD — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:02:23 -0700

So, what does "whois www.amazon.com" give you? And why would you say those results indicate Amazon's DNS entry was hacked??

Amazon.com offline (back now!)

Jordan Golson — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:14:01 -0700

Amazon.com is currently offline. No ETA on when it'll return, but it's safe to say this wasn't a scheduled outage. (Amazon.com)

UPDATE 3: The site is back up and operational now after 90 minutes of downtime. AdAge estimates that Amazon lost $1.8 million in revenue, but that's the textbook definition of a shot in the dark. We'll see what Amazon has to say about this outage if and when they address it. For now though, happy shopping!

Amazon put out a small notice to third-party resellers about the "un-planned event", but nothing on its media page.

UPDATE 2: The problem is starting to be resolved. Now we the below error message when visiting Amazon.com.

UPDATE: It looks like it could be a DNS issue. It looks like Amazon's DNS entry got hacked. Here's what results from a Whois search for Amazon.com:

Smokey:~ jlgolson$ whois amazon.com

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered

with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net

for detailed information.

AMAZON.COM.ZZZZZ.GET.LAID.AT.WWW.SWINGINGCOMMUNITY.COM

AMAZON.COM.MORE.INFO.AT.WWW.BEYONDWHOIS.COM

AMAZON.COM.IS.N0T.AS.1337.AS.WWW.GULLI.COM

AMAZON.COM

To single out one record, look it up with "xxx", where xxx is one of the

of the records displayed above. If the records are the same, look them up

with "=xxx" to receive a full display for each record.

>>> Last update of whois database: Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:35:00 EDT <<<

Yes, the commenters are right. It's not DNS that caused it. Three lashes for me.