flares

Reports from Internet monitoring services show that recent news of a cyber attack so big that it made the Internet slow to a crawl around the world was a bit dramatic.

The New York Times reported about spam-fighting nonprofit Spamhaus and a distributed-denial-of-service attack on the Dutch group's site that became the "largest computer attacks on the Internet" and caused a "widespread congestion and jamming crucial infrastructure around the world."

Matthew Prince, the CEO of CloudFlare, the company enlisted to fight the attacks for Spamhaus, told CNET today that the attacks -- which ceased yesterday … Read more

Web security service CloudFlare was offline for about an hour this morning due to a systemwide failure of its edge routers.

The outage, which began around 1:47 a.m. PT, removed the security layer for 785,000 Web sites, including 4chan and Wikileaks, according to TechCrunch. CloudFlare said the outage occurred while it was trying to defend one of its customers from a distributed denial-of-service attack.

The outage affected Juniper routers running the Flowspec protocol, which allows customers to broadcast router rules to a large number of routers efficiently. CloudFlare uses the protocol to update the rules on routers … Read more

Staying ahead of the curve has been a hallmark of Lookout Mobile Security (download), one of the few Android-only security companies to gain a loyal fanbase on Google's mobile platform, and today they've released a major update.

The key feature improvements in the refreshed Android app are a new feature for tracking lost phones with low battery and a dialer-scanner to prevent Dialer app attacks like the one that reared its head in September. The threat was no mere digital crank call. Had you tapped the link and dialed the malicious number, it could remotely wipe your phone. … Read more

After privately telling an iPhone 5 user that the purple halo sometimes produced by the device's camera is due to how users are framing photos, Apple has gone public with suggestions for preventing the flare on images.

Soon after the device went on sale last month, owners began complaining of a purple color showing up on the edges of photos, an issue that typically occurs when a light source is immediately nearby, though it can occur even when the light is off frame. It can also affect both photos and videos.

Earlier this month, an AppleCare support representative responding … Read more

A group of sunspots 11 times wider than the Earth turned to face our planet, raising the possibility of solar flares and auroras tonight.

More than 60,000 miles wide, Sunspot Region 1476 became visible over the weekend and two coronal mass ejections (CMEs), where a portion of the sun's atmosphere breaks off, erupted on Tuesday.

The CMEs blasts could arrive on Earth later today and cause moderate geomagnetic storms later and auroras in the higher latitudes, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.

The CMEs are traveling at 1.5 million miles per hour but, since they … Read more

SUNSPOT, N.M.--Back in 1950, an order was placed for a grain bin from the Sears Catalog. That bin was delivered up to the far reaches of the Sacramento Mountains in New Mexico, and after some modifications, it became the first solar telescope in Sunspot.

Sunspot may be the geekiest town in America. It's an unincorporated community full of scientists and support staff for the National Solar Observatory. The road leading into town is State Highway 6563, named for a hydrogen emission line wavelength used in stellar astronomy. … Read more

NASA released images and a video of a solar prominence, a giant arch of super-hot gases bursting off the sun's surface.

The prominence, shot yesterday from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory telescope, is associated with a solar flare, a brightening on the sun's surface that often occurs when a piece of the sun's atmosphere breaks off from the sun.

In this case, the medium-size solar flare was off the east side of the sun. It is not directed toward Earth. As such, it doesn't threaten to disrupt satellites or air travel, as other solar flares have. … Read more

Space forecasters said today's solar storm is having relatively weak effects this morning, lessening the chances of disturbances to satellites or the grid. The event, however, is ongoing and still could cause problems.

A solar flare from an active spot on the sun Tuesday caused a coronal mass ejection (CME), where high-energy gases from the sun break off and hurtle off into space. This morning, this blast struck Earth in a storm which could last until tomorrow.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center yesterday had forecast it to be a strong geomagnetic storm but so far it's been … Read more

You may be having a typical Thursday, but the Earth is currently being blasted by a wave of radiation from a huge solar flare.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center said the solar storm hit the Earth at about 2:45 a.m. PT. The solar storm is one of the strongest in years and could cause disruptions in satellites, affect radio communications in polar areas, and even slightly decrease the efficiency of solar panels.

This solar storm follows a similarly strong one only two months ago. Here's a short primer on what's going on.

First, are these … Read more