Google shields security reporter targeted by massive cyberattack

Google is putting its considerable internet might behind protecting the reporting of Brian Krebs, a respected security journalist who's website has been largely inaccessible for the past week due to a massive cyberattack.

Krebs' site -- Krebs on Security -- came under attack after he reported he had tracked down the alleged operators of vDOS, a service that helped coordinate more than 150,000 DDoS attacks in the last two years. Krebs described the cyber-offensive as a "record" distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, flooding servers with 620 gigabits per second of traffic, nearly twice the number of phony traffic requests than the previously largest attack Akamai had ever seen.

Under the burden of such a large attack, Akamai, which had been hosting Krebs' content for free, decided to kick him off the service. Krebs held no ill feelings for the company, even noting that Akamai executives had said the attack could cost the company millions of dollars. However, Krebs said Sunday that his site was returning under the umbrella of Jigsaw's Project Shield, a free program that helps small websites ward off DDoS attacks by routing content through Google's infrastructure, without having to change hosts.