RIPE NCC Report:
Internet Resilience to US Blackout and MS Blaster Worm.

Two major events occurred during the week beginning 11 August, 2003 that might have affected the general Internet infrastructure:

• The electricity blackout in the north-eastern part of the US and eastern Canada on 14 August, 2003.
• The so-called MS Blaster worm attack on the Microsoft sites on 16 August, 2003

The RIPE NCC looked for the effects these events may have had on the general Internet infrastructure by using data collected by the following projects: Test Traffic Measurements (delay and loss measurements), Routing Information Service (BGP routing) and DNSMON (monitoring of root and ccTLD servers). The following observations were made during the blackout:

• One measurement point, located in the heart of the affected area, went down when its UPS system failed.
• One TTM measurement point located close to the area affected by the blackout showed an increase in delays from some destinations. This could have been caused by traffic being re-routed around the north-eastern US. Similar delays have been seen in the past, so this might have been unrelated to the blackout. At no time was connectivity lost.
• BGP activity went up during the blackout. This is consistent with routers going down and traffic being re-routed around the troubled area.
• The root and ccTLD servers continued to operate and respond as usual. These servers have back-up power systems that took over.

During 16 August, 2003 no effects were seen from the so-called MS Blaster worm attack on the Microsoft sites. This is consistent with Microsoft's own observations and is probably due to the publicity surrounding the worm and the availability of patches before the event.

In conclusion, none of our data indicates that the Internet infrastructure was affected by either of these events.