How did Elliott stop the DDoS attack?
In Mr. Robot, Season 1, Episode 1, Elliott stopped a DDoS attack, but how exactly did he do it?
If I understand well, he notices that everything was being infected, all the servers, so he goes to some "main" server, I guess. Then he cuts the connection between this main server and all the rest that was infected. But I'm not sure about my understanding.
Can someone explain what was going on at this part of the show?
Best Answer
The servers were not just being DDoSed, there was a rootkit installed on the network, which was part of the server startup sequence, causing them to crash over and over every time Elliot or Lloyd restarted them. Elliot explains they need to take the servers down and wipe/reinstall them in order to clear out the rootkits.
Gideon (Allsafe owner) takes Elliot with him to the server farm where the machines are physically hosted. While they are en route, the servers are being wiped/restored.
Elliot notices that one of the infected servers was missed and is in the process of being brought back up - if this happens, it will reinfect the network with the rootkit and undo all the progress in stopping the hack so far, so he redirects the connections to that server's backup server instead, leaving the infected one offline. This gets the network back up and running in a clean state.
He then investigates the infected machine and locates the infection/malware. He is about to delete it and then decides not to, instead changing the file's permissions so that the only user who can access the file is his user id.
Pictures about "How did Elliott stop the DDoS attack?"
Did Elliot hack Allsafe?
Allsafe employee Elliot Alderson stopped the hack, while secretly giving fsociety access to the root directory of cs30 server of E Corp's network. This hack lead to the dismissal and criminal prosecution of Terry Colby, E Corp's former Chief Technology Officer (CTO).What is a DDoS attack Mr Robot?
In the Mr. Robot pilot, Allsafe notices a DDoS attack happening to E Corp and calls Elliot in to help. "A DDoS attack is many, many different people trying to access a webpage all at once," Matre says. All that demand makes a site overload and shut down.ELLIOT STOPS A DDOS ATTACK in MR ROBOT Season 1
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: LT Chan, Aaron J Hill, DS stories, Anete Lusina