Amazon Outage: Hacker Group Takes Credit, But Amazon Denies Outside Involvement

By Alexandra Burlacu email: a.burlacu@mobilenapps.com | Feb 01, 2013 12:26 PM EST

Share This Story

  • Print
  • Email

Amazon, one of the world's largest online retailers, has experienced a rare issue: an hour-long outage that affected users all across the U.S.

Users trying to access the Amazon homepage reported a series of errors with "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable" adorning the site.

Follow us

"The gateway page of Amazon.com was offline to some customers for approximately 49 minutes. Other pages of the site were accessible and AWS was not impacted," Amazon spokesman Ty Rogers said in a statement to the media. The spokesman did not give any particular reason for the disruption.

While a temporary outage is not something never seen before, the 503 errors brought up during the down time are sometimes linked to DDoS attacks or other types of overloads. Such 503 errors can also be associated with maintenance issues, but when it comes to e-commerce giants or other places where user data is stored it raises a few questions. Moreover, Amazon's homepage itself continued to be down even as its S3 cloud service and product pages started to go back online.

Amazon said that it was not the victim of a DDoS attack and the outage was not related to any outside involvement, but a hacker group called Nazi Gods has taken credit for the outage. Taking credit for something does not make it true, but the group even went to Twitter to explain how it brought down Amazon.

"We used a 7kbotnet running hoic 100 threads each. 80servers in botnet and a 16gbps booter," boasted the hacker group.

As it turns out, however, this is not the first time that Nazi Gods made questionable claims regarding its role in a successful attack. Just a couple of weeks ago, Cyber War News gathered substantial evidence that Nazi Gods had taken credit for bringing down cyberwarnews.info when in fact it had not.

Amazon's Web site is now fully up and running and the company did not confirm being hacked, which only seems to have angered Nazi Gods even more.

"Amazon claims no ddos attack happened. Ofcourse, any attempt to rekindle your ub3r 1337 servers reputation. Gtfo @amazon," added the group.

Although Nazi Gods is very determined to convince everyone that it is behind the Amazon outage, its claims should be taken with a grain of salt, as no substantial evidence backs up those claims. 

Get the Most Popular Mobile&Apps Stories in a Weekly Newsletter

© 2013 Mobile & Apps All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Join Our Conversation

Smartphones
Google Nexus 4 White VersionWhite Nexus 4 To Launch On June 10 Rocking Latest Android 4.3
Galaxy S4 Best Selling Samsung Smartphone Of All Time?
Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean Coming Soon For HTC One; Google Edition of HTC One On The Way
Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean Official Firmware Update For Samsung Galaxy S3 I9300 Via XXEMD2 [How To Install]
Tablet / Laptop / PC
MacBook AirNew MacBook Air To Debut In June With Intel's New Haswell Processor?
Nexus 7 Refresh Teased In Google+ Hangouts Video, Sports Glowing Notification Light
AMD Unleashes Radeon 8900M Mobile GPU: Get It In MSI GX70 Gaming Laptop
Dell XPS 10 Drops Price To $300, Marking A New Low For Windows RT
Gadgets
Xbox Release Event InviteNext Microsoft Xbox To Sport Dashboard UI Update And Tile Changes
Google Media Streamer Hits FCC To Replace Nexus Q
Google Glass Raises Lawmakers' Concerns: Congress Demands Answers About Privacy
Seven New Apps Coming To Google Glass: Facebook, Twitter, And Evernote Included
OS / Software
HTC OneAndroid 4.2.2 Jelly Bean Coming Soon For HTC One; Google Edition of HTC One On The Way
Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean Official Firmware Update For Samsung Galaxy S3 I9300 Via XXEMD2 [How To Install]
Windows Phone Took Third Spot From BlackBerry In Latest Worldwide Market Share Report
Sprint Releases Software Update For HTC One: Key Sensitivity Issues To Be Fixed
Internet / Social Media
The Yahoo logYahoo Is Eyeing Tumblr
Google I/O 2013: Chrome Web Browser Now Has 750 Million Active Users
Google I/O 2013: Google Maps Gets New UI And Google+ Hangouts Shows Massive Improvements
Gtalk Chat Integration Coming To Outlook.com
What's App
Intellicam Windows Phone 8Intellicam App Brings First Hands-Free Camera Feature To Windows Phone 8
Seven New Apps Coming To Google Glass: Facebook, Twitter, And Evernote Included
Itsdagram Available Now For Windows Phone: Best Instagram Client Around
Google I/O 2013: Chrome Web Browser Now Has 750 Million Active Users

DON'T MISS

Galaxy S3 Sapphire Black
Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean Official Firmware Update For Samsung Galaxy S3 I9300 Via XXEMD2 [How To Install]
The update comes with some features like Group CastApp and Page Buddy.
MacBook Air
New MacBook Air To Debut In June With Intel's New Haswell Processor?
Apple is expected to update its hardware lineup as soon as June with a new MacBook Air likely
HTC One
Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean Coming Soon For HTC One; Google Edition of HTC One On The Way
According to Android Authority, "@LlabTooFeR says he knows about the HTC One without Sense 'for a
Galaxy S4 Launch in Korea
Galaxy S4 Best Selling Samsung Smartphone Of All Time?
Galaxy is the new iPhone, as the Samsung Galaxy S4 approaches 10 million devices shipped in less
Google Nexus 4 White Version
White Nexus 4 To Launch On June 10 Rocking Latest Android 4.3
The white Nexus 4 that created a lot of buzz among rumor mills recently, finally has a launch date:
Jabra HALO2 Bluetooth Stereo Headset
Amazon Deals Of The Day: Sony Xperia Z, Jabra HALO2 Bluetooth Stereo Headset And More
Here are some deals for those on a right budget, or for those who can't pass up on a good deal.

Nokia Lumia 925
Windows Phone Took Third Spot From BlackBerry In Latest Worldwide Market Share Report
The Windows Phone platform is definitely growing, but can it continue with this momentum?
HTC One
Sprint Releases Software Update For HTC One: Key Sensitivity Issues To Be Fixed
According to a post on Sprint's community page, the software build number 1.29. 651.10 has been
Pentagon
Apple iOS 6 Devices Cleared For Military Use In U.S.
The Pentagon has approved Apple devices running iOS 6 for use on its networks, which means Apple
RIM BlackBerry 10
BlackBerry Live: 120,000 Apps in BlackBerry World, Gaining on Windows Phone
The numbers are in, and it appears BlackBerry World might walk over Windows Phone sooner or later.
Copyright © 2013 Mobile & Apps All rights reserved. mobilenapps
Real Time Analytics