As I write this, one of the largest websites on the net titled Facebook is plain and simple DOWN. But is it because of a security maintenance or something else?
Millions Of Users Locked Out Of Facebook
Yes, even the largest websites have many flaws – Facebook is no exception, but is it really down because they are fixing a security loophole that allowed hackers to gain access to accounts (yes, you read right! According to the BBC there is a security hole that allows everyone to log into YOUR account without a password) or because someone is actively trying to bring it down.
Facebook Sending Wrong Site Headers, Signals Severe Problem
I assume that the team behind Facebook are not amateurs and do know that a 500 redirect is NOT a proper way to take a site down. According to official Google guidelines, a 503 header status is the correct message to send to take down a site for maintenance
Update1: For all non-webmasters – every website sends out so called “headers”. E.g. 200 for available, 404 for “not found” or 500 for “service unavailable”. The message “503” is the correct code to say hey my site is currently down for maintenance
Picture: http://downrightnow.com/ shows Facebook is down
When checking the headers of the site, I confirmed that Facebook is currently sending the error 500 and not 503. This could be an indication that Facebook engineers had very little time to prepare for this maintenance OR that someone is messing with Facebook.
Picture: Facebook is sending incorrect headers – an indication that there is a little more behind the problem?
Facebook Not Under Attack, Possibly DNS Problem
Update 2: According to many tweets via hashtag #FacebookDown it could be a major DNS problem or even a sophisticated attack on Facebook’s DNS servers.
Update 3: Anonymous said on their official Twitter stream that they are NOT attacking Facebook and that it’s a problem caused by Facebook
