DDOS
DDOS
A denial-of-service attack (also, DoS attack) is an attack on a computer system or network that causes a loss of service to users, typically the loss of network connectivity and services by consuming the bandwidth of the victim network or overloading the computational resources of the victim system.
Denial of Service attacks can also lead to problems in the network 'branches' around the actual computer being attacked. For example, the bandwidth of a router between the Internet and a LAN may be consumed by a DoS, meaning not only will the intended computer be compromised, but the entire network will also be disrupted.
If the DoS is conducted in a sufficiently large scale, entire geographical swathes of Internet connectivity can also be compromised by incorrectly configured or flimsy network infrastructure equipment without the attacker's knowledge or intent. For this reason, most, if not all ISPs ban the practice.
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DDOS Related Products
The Juniper Networks NetScreen-5000 series is a line of purpose-built, high-performance firewall/VPN security systems designed to deliver a new level of high-performance capabilities for large enterprise, carrier, and data center networks. The NetScreen-5000 series consists of two products: the 2-slot NetScreen-5200 system and the 4-slot NetScreen-5400 system. NetScreen-5000 security systems integrate firewall, VPN, DoS and DDoS protection, and traffic-management functionality, in a low-profile modular chassis. Built around Juniper's third-generation security ASIC and distributed system architecture, the NetScreen-5000 series offers excellent scalability and flexibility, while providing a higher level security system through Juniper Networks NetScreen ScreenOS custom operating system. Both products employ a switch fabric for data exchange and separate multibus channel for control information, delivering scalable performance for the most demanding environments.
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Radware award winning DefensePro™ is a real-time Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and DoS protection device that protects your application infrastructure against known attacks and emerging zero-minute and non-vulnerability network attacks that cannot be detected by static signature IPS using behavioral based real-time signatures.
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DDOS Related Industry News
Attack On Internet Called Largest Ever The heart of the Internet sustained its largest and most sophisticated attack ever, starting late Monday, according to officials at key online backbone organizations.
Around 5:00 p.m. EDT on Monday, a "distributed denial of service" (DDOS) attack struck the 13 "root servers" that provide the primary roadmap for almost all Internet communications. Despite the scale of the attack, which lasted about an hour, Internet users worldwide were largely unaffect......
[more] Worm could be clearing path for DDoS attack The Deloder worm is beginning to spread slowly on the Internet - leaving two Trojan horse programs in its wake A new worm that leaves behind two Trojan horse programs has begun spreading over the Internet, and may be paving the way for a crippling distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
The virus -- dubbed WORM_DELODER.A -- has made its way into a large number of machines in China, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and the US, Trend Mic......
[more] Hacktivists DDoS 10 Downing St site UK government website 10 Downing Street was briefly rendered inaccessible yesterday after a co-ordinated denial of service attack protesting the Prime Minster's role in the conflict.
The site, which runs IIS on Win2K (according to Netcraft), is back on-line.
Unconfirmed reports suggest hackers went one step further with the Whitehouse site, reportedly spraying it with anti-war graffiti. Defacement archive, Zone-h.org, links to a record of this suppose......
[more] SCO sidesteps MyDoom attacks SCO has moved its Internet operations to the domain www.thescogroup.com in response to the denial of service attack generated by the MyDoom worm against its regular base of operations, www.sco.com.
The alternate Web site is expected to serve as an interim site for SCO until 12 February, when the DDoS attack generated by the MyDoom is expected to conclude.
Netcraft reports that www.thescogroup.com resolves to the same IP address as sco.com, one of a variety o......
[more] DDoS attacks go through the roof The growing prevalence of criminally motivated DDoS attacks calls for a fundamental rethink in how enterprises approach security Companies typically bolster the security infrastructure only after they are attacked. But this approach is misguided and costly, according to Paul Lawrence, EMEA general manager at security outfit Top Layer. Lawrence is fed up with ambulance chasing ("it’s a strain on our resources") and is urging companies to become more pro-active in......
[more] Growing threat of cyber extortionists on Internet casinos With more than 1,800 online casinos, millions of customers around the world and millions of dollars being wagered each day website security can not remained ignored.
Computer network security companies like Riverhead Networks are tuning into the market of casino-specific online security. Riverhead is already one of the leading providers of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) solutions.
Because of efforts from companies like Rive......
[more] Net closes on betting 'hackmail' gang Bookies breathe huge sigh of relief… Police are reported to be closing in on a gang of 'hackmailers' threatening to bring down betting websites during the year's biggest sporting weekend next month unless a 'protection' fee is paid.
The UK's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) revealed in January that it was investigating the threats against UK businesses, which are thought to be the work of organised criminal gangs rather than amateur hackers.
U......
[more] Security product to strike back at hackers Symbiot, a Texas-based security company, plans to release a corporate defense system that fights back against distributed denial-of-service and hacker attacks by launching counterstrikes. Security experts are expressing alarm at the company's plans for the product, set for release at month's end.
Mike Erwin, Symbiot's president, and Paco Nathan, its chief scientist, are preparing for the release by posting a set of "rules of engagement for informati......
[more] Extortionists take out UK gambling site A UK-based online gambling exchange, Sporting Options, was hit by a denial of service attack at the weekend in the latest online extortionist assault against online bookies.
The company's site was rendered inaccessible for 40 hours in an attack timed to coincide with Britain's biggest betting race - the Grand National - and the FA Cup semi-final between Arsenal and Manchester United.
A flood of spurious traffic swamped the site with more than two mi......
[more] Kazaa, eDonkey brace for attack File-sharing Web sites Kazaa and eDonkey are steeling themselves for a distributed denial-of-service attack expected Wednesday from a clutch of new variants of the NetSky worm. NetSky.Q, which first appeared last week, is designed to attack various Web sites that distribute either file-sharing clients or hacking and cracking tools. Kazaa and eDonkey are its best-known targets, and the attack is scheduled to last for six days. However, they will get only a short br......
[more] Witty extinction The "Witty" worm appeared on 19 March, and within a few short days it completed its mission and effectively disappeared. It received minimal coverage by the major news media outlets and for many people it has already been largely forgotten, a mere blip on the radar among so many blips of new viruses and virus variants that appear each week. If the Witty worm didn't affect you, as is the case for most people, you probably don't care. But you should. The Witty worm set a dangerou......
[more] Kazaa and eDonkey brace for NetSky-Q onslaught Zombie PCs infected with the NetSky-Q worm are set to launch distributed denial of service attacks against P2P and warez sites tonight.
The worm will attempt to flood the main Web sites of Kazaa and eDonkey with spurious traffic between 00:01 8 April and 11 April (time taken from system clocks). Other sites including www.cracks.st, www.cracks.am and www.emule-project.net are also targeted for attack. File-sharing networks themselves won't be aff......
[more] More to blame for virus epidemics There is an interesting new dynamic to the recent malicious code outbreaks that have plagued corporations.
The methods of infection and propagation haven't changed much--virus writers are still relying on mass-mailing techniques--but the targets of these exploits have changed drastically.
Over the last several years, most malicious code has targeted Internet users in general. Recently, however, the target has shifted. Malicious code is now the preferred......
[more] Unwitting pawns or partly to blame? There is an interesting new dynamic to the recent malicious code outbreaks that have plagued corporations. The methods of infection and propagation haven't changed much--virus writers are still relying on mass-mailing techniques--but the targets of these exploits have changed drastically.
Over the last several years, most malicious code has targeted Internet users in general. Recently, however, the target has shifted. Malicious code is now the preferred w......
[more] NetSky-V spreads on auto-pilot Yet another NetSky virus arrived on the scene today. NetSky-V spreads using a well known Internet Explorer vulnerability, connected with the handling of XML pages. Instead of depending on users double clicking on infectious email attachments, the worm can spread automatically across vulnerable Windows boxes.
Users can be infected by NetSky-V simply by reading an infected email.
Just as well then that NetSky-V, although it has been observed in the wild, is......
[more] Would you like a cherry Bagle with your zombie PC? An unknown group of VXers has released a new version of the Bagle worm.
Bagle-Y (AKA Cherry Bagle) spreads by either email or network shares. It opens back doors on infected PCs and turns them into zombie clients in DDoS or spam networks. The worm also tries to terminate various security and anti-virus applications, as well as processes associated with the NetSky worm. Most AV vendors rate Bagle-Y, which was first spotted today, as medium-ri......
[more] Hidden 'backdoors' worry security firms The recent spate of Netsky and Bagle worms is not just a problem now: it may compromise thousands of PCs for the foreseeable future, say security experts Software "back doors" that can give hackers full control over an infected PC are becoming more difficult to detect because of the sheer number of viruses and worms that can now distribute this type of malware, say security experts.
The Bagle worm, which was first discovered in the middle of January, ha......
[more] Hidden 'backdoors' worry security firms The recent spate of Netsky and Bagle worms is not just a problem now: it may compromise thousands of PCs for the foreseeable future, say security experts Software "back doors" that can give hackers full control over an infected PC are becoming more difficult to detect because of the sheer number of viruses and worms that can now distribute this type of malware, say security experts.
The Bagle worm, which was first discovered in the middle of January, ha......
[more] Virus update: Sasser grounds BA as hype takes hold The Sasser worm continues to cause problems for computer users worldwide and has claimed more big names - such as British Airways and investment bank Goldman Sachs.
The virus hit a staggering 300,000 machines at Deutsche Post and a number of hospitals in New Orleans were shut down for several hours.
But closer to home the biggest victim so far has been British Airways, which lost the use of around half its check-in desk computers at He......
[more] Spam fighters infiltrate spam clubs Spam fighters are gaining vital clues in the battle to keep in-boxes clean of junk mail by infiltrating spammer clubs.
Online spammer forums like the Pro Bulk Club the Bulk Club and bulkmails.org have been gatecrashed by activists from organisations like Spamhaus. Steve Linford of Spamhaus said spammers know this already but they don't know who amongst their number is working for the other side. In theory invitation to the members-only forums of these sit......
[more] Mutant son of MyDoom plans three-pronged attack Virus writers have used code from the infamous Mydoom worm to create a potentially dangerous new Internet worm which uses multiple methods to spread.
Plexus-A spreads using three different methods: infected email attachments, file-sharing networks and Windows vulnerabilities (the LSASS vulnerability used by Sasser and the RPC DCOM flaw used by Blaster). The as yet unknown virus authors used MyDoom source code as the basis for creating Plexus,......
[more] Zombie PCs spew out 80% of spam Four-fifths of spam now emanates from computers contaminated with Trojan horse infections, according to a study by network management firm Sandvine out this week. Trojans and worms with backdoor components such as Migmaf and SoBig have turned infected Windows PCs into drones in vast networks of compromised zombie PCs.
Sandvine reckons junk mails created and routed by "spam Trojans" are clogging ISP mail servers, forcing unplanned network upgrades and stoking......
[more] The Wi-Fi explosion: a virus writer's dream With the consumer Wi-Fi explosion, launching a virus into the wild has never been easier and more anonymous than it is today. Like a sneeze in a crowded subway, it's hard to find the human source of the latest viral infection. On the Internet it's not much different. The people who write these nasty little programs and release them into the wild almost never get caught. Why? The answer is easy, but it's also a sort of technical nemesis: there's simply......
[more] Hacker offers to shut Putin's website In the spirit of the free market computer hackers in Russia have put their services up for sale, offering to "take out" any website for a price.
Several hackers have posted a menu of services on the internet. The most popular is a Direct Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, in which a website and server can be disabled by being bombarded with emails and other information.
These tactics have been used against large software companies such as Microsoft, d......
[more] Web outage blamed on zombies Akamai has blamed a 'bot net' of zombified PCs for the Internet downtime that affected sites such as Yahoo this week The attack that blacked out Google, Yahoo and other major Web sites earlier this week involved the use of a "bot net" -- a large network of zombified home PCs -- Internet infrastructure provider Akamai Technologies said Wednesday.
The attack, which blocked nearly all access to Apple Computer, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo's Web sites for two hours on......
[more] Bagle author releases 'dangerous' assembler code Two new Bagle worm variants and the worm's original assembler source code were spreading around the Internet on Sunday - a dangerous development, according to security experts The author of Bagle started distributing two new variants and the mass-mailing worm's source code on Sunday, which could trigger another summer of misery for Windows users
The Bagle worm first appeared in January as an email attachment and within months there were more th......
[more] Have a flutter on a worm When will the next big worm strike be? Who will be the next high-profile victim of a DDoS attack? If you know, you could make money at Tradesports.com Controversial Irish Web site Tradesports.com will soon accept wagers on IT security disasters, such as the timing of the next big Windows virus or the most likely victim of a future DDoS attack.
Futures market broker Tradesports.com has been criticised in the past for allowing its customers to gamble on controv......
[more] Google recovers after virus hits Net search engine Google appeared to resume normal service in the UK around 2000BST on Monday after a virus crippled its search engine. Net security firms reported that the havoc seemed to have been caused by a new variant of the MyDoom virus. Google confirmed a number of users in the UK and some US and French users had experienced problems. The search engine is one of the most popular on the net, dealing with 200 million global queries a day.
Hug......
[more] MyDoom Attacks Microsoft.com Through Back Door As many security researchers feared after analyzing the code for MyDoom.O, a second, related attack began in earnest Tuesday with a new piece of code using the back door installed by MyDoom.O to spread itself and launch a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack against Microsoft.com.
MyDoom.O, also known as MyDoom.M or MyDoom.M@mm, installs a Trojan known as Zincite.A on every PC that it infects. The Trojan opens TCP port 1034 and listens for......
[more] Russian hacker blackmailed gambling companies A criminal case related to the article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was instigated under control of General Prosecutor Office, Russian police informed. What has the young man done to draw the attention of high standing law enforcement?
Police cleared out that the young man didn't trim money out of a neighbour small shop, but from huge international companies and that he became a player of another criminal case initiated agains......
[more] Worldpay hit with DDoS attack Online transaction service Worldpay appears to be the latest victim of a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS) over the weekend with its website falling off the face of the internet by Monday. Such attacks typically involve bombarding websites or servers with enough traffic as to render them unusable -- typically through a co-ordinated attack by hi-jacked machines as seen with the endgame of the MyDoom virus attack which turned its army of 'zombies' on SCO.......
[more] Bush and GOP Sites Outage, DDOS Attack Suspected Web sites for President Bush's campaign and the Republican National Committee suffered outages for several hours on Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear whether a systems failure or a hacking attack was to blame. Campaign and committee officials would only say they were investigating.
The sites began experiencing problems about 11 a.m., according to two companies that monitor Internet performance.
AlertSite.com, which had monitors probing t......
[more] Extortionists target bookmaker with child porn blackmail threat Blue Square hit by DDOS attack Online extortionists have tried to blackmail one of the UK's most prominent internet betting firms, threatening a child pornography smear campaign unless it meets financial demands.
Cyber criminals targeted bookmaker Blue Square on Monday morning, taking down its web site for five hours by bombarding it with a distributed denial of service attack.
Blackmailers then sent the bookmaker an email claimin......
[more] Worm takes aim at Google and Microsoft ...and, for some reason, the Hungarian prime minister... The latest variant of the Zafi worm was discovered on Wednesday and unlike the previous two variants, Zafi.C has been coded to launch a DDoS attack against Google.com, Microsoft.com and miniszterelnok.hu, which is the website of the Hungarian prime minister.
The Zafi worm has evolved since it was first discovered in April of this year. Zafi.A contained Hungarian text and only tried to send itself to......
[more] Suspected hacking mastermind on 'most wanted' list The first man in the US to be indicted for launching denial-of-service attacks has made the FBI's 'most wanted' list after going on the run The FBI has added a new kind of criminal to its most wanted list -- a man on the run accused of hiring hackers to damage the businesses of his competitors.
According to the FBI Web site, Saad (Jay) Echouafni, who is listed with the likes of armed robbers, bombers and drug dealers, is said to have caused dam......
[more] Lycos army shoots itself in foot? The Lycos zombie army may have been the victim of its own strength, an antivirus expert believes Lycos may accidentally have launched a denial-of-service attack against its own anti-spam campaign Web site, "Make Love Not Spam".
According to security company F-Secure on Thursday, one of the Web sites Lycos targeted in its zombie army attack -- www.mortgage.info -- redirected traffic back to www.makelovenotspam.com. This means that Lycos could have targeted its o......
[more] Lycos Europe Pulls Spam-Fighting Screensaver Analysts say a new twist on the war against spammers in Europe isn't likely to spill across Unites States borders, but is rather an opening salvo more likely to fizzle than to explode.
Earlier this week, Lycos Europe launched an aggressive campaign targeting spam-related Web sites. The UK-based company took the offensive when it released a "screensaver that spams the spammers."
Downloads of the screensaver, cheekily named "MakeLoveNotSpam," allowe......
[more] 2004 was good and bad for IT security Experts agree: 2004 was the best of times, and the worst of times for those concerned about IT security. It was a year with high-profile arrests of virus authors, and the explosion of online crimes, from cyberextortion to identity theft, a year in which ISPs (Internet service providers) won millions in damages from spammers, and spam messages increased by 40 percent.
In hindsight, 2004 may be looked back upon as the year that a long tradition of hobbyist......
[more] UK virus teen sentenced for Randex infection They didn't exactly throw the book at him... A British teenager has been sentenced for his part in writing and distributing the Randex worm which turned infected PCs into 'zombies', controlled by spammers to send out vast quantities of unsolicited email.
The creation of such 'bot-nets' has become a prolific weapon in the arsenal of professional spammers and their creation through the distribution of worms and Trojans has become big business for virus......
[more] UK virus teen sentenced for Randex infection They didn't exactly throw the book at him... A British teenager has been sentenced for his part in writing and distributing the Randex worm which turned infected PCs into 'zombies', controlled by spammers to send out vast quantities of unsolicited email.
The creation of such 'bot-nets' has become a prolific weapon in the arsenal of professional spammers and their creation through the distribution of worms and Trojans has become big business for viru......
[more] Man charged with DDoS attacks after U.S.-British inquiry A man appeared in court Monday on international computer crime charges following an investigation by British police and U.S. Secret Service agents. Matthew Anderson, 27, appeared at Elgin Sheriff Court charged under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 of attacks on the Internet that involved using compromised computers to flood Web sites with useless traffic.
Anderson, of Drummuir, near Dufftown, was not asked to enter a plea and he was release......
[more] MSN Messenger hit by double-whammy worm A Bropia variant is using MSN Messenger to spread, and is packaged with a second more damaging worm The latest variant of the Bropia worm was discovered on Wednesday evening. It infects users of MSN Messenger by sending itself as a picture of a roast chicken with tan lines. It also releases a second more dangerous worm called agabot.ajc on the infected user's computer.
Adam Biviano, senior systems engineer at antivirus firm Trend Micro, said that although......
[more] Spyware Critic Knocked Offline by DDoS Attack Harvard researcher Ben Edelman, one of the most vocal critics of spyware purveyors, fell victim to a massive DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack over the past 24 hours.
Edelman's Web site, which publishes detailed research reports on spyware, was knocked offline for much of Monday and Tuesday by a DDoS attack that crippled the server capacity.
"My prior Web host tells me I was the target of the biggest DDoS attack they've ever suffered—som......
[more] 5 years ago... Clinton holds hacker war talks 'MafiaBoy' eventually found guilty of the DDoS attacks on Amazon and eBay… 15.02.2000: US President Bill Clinton is meeting with executives from 20 internet companies today as the crisis over denial-of-service attacks continues.
The meeting will include representatives from some of the companies affected by last week's attacks - including eBay and Yahoo! - along with technology firms like Cisco.
The FBI is continuing its investigation into the att......
[more] The war on spam: Can we win it with DDoS attacks? How far do we go in the fight against spam? Jonathan Yarden examines the controversy of launching DDoS attacks against spammers. On April 12, 1994, spam first entered the Internet world in the form of an unsolicited Usenet advertisement, sometimes referred to as the "green card lottery" posting. The day this infamous message began making its rounds, I knew that the era of commercial-free communication on the Net had ended. Over the next decade,......
[more] Why power plants need anti-virus Utility companies are been urged to review cyber security risks as the industry moves over from proprietary technologies to cheaper Windows-based systems. Attendees at an Industrial Cyber Security Conference in London on Tuesday 15 March were told that the control systems of utilities are becoming open to the kinds of attacks that bedevil corporate systems, such as computer worms and DDoS attacks, as power and water companies embrace the net.
What's the evidenc......
[more] Duo charged over DDoS for hire scam The FBI last week arrested a 17 year-old and a Michigan man over suspected involvement in a denial of service for hire racket. The duo allegedly orchestrated an October 2004 attack against a New Jersey company that sells sporting goods over the internet. Jersey-joe.com suffered the loss of "hundreds of thousands of dollars" of business as the result of the disruption caused by the attack, according to a statement by investigators.
Detectives learned that the......
[more] Leading Organizations Worldwide Join Together to Stop Internet Attacks Major service providers share real-time network attack profiles across global network boundaries Leading service providers and organizations worldwide today demonstrated a unified commitment to share detailed network attack profiles through a Fingerprint Sharing Alliance, announced separately today by Arbor Networks.
The Fingerprint Sharing Alliance marks the first time companies are able to share detailed attack information......
[more] Security websites taken down by unhappy hackers Unable to take criticism, code writers resort to DDoS attack. Two prominent websites that specialise in remote access software have been taken offline by a DDoS attack orchestrated by a group of hackers who have taken offence at comments posted about them.
Rootkit.com, an established website run by security expert Greg Hoglund, has been offline for almost a week. Two other sites, operated by a prominent rootkit author known as "Holy Father" have a......
[more] Hackers turning away from Windows In the first quarter of 2005 software such as iTunes, as well as antivirus applications, came under particularly focused attack Online criminals turned their attention to antivirus software and media players in the first three months of 2005, as they sought new ways to take control of peoples' computers, according to a survey released on Monday.
Hackers continued to poke new holes in Microsoft's popular Windows operating system, but they increasingly exploited......
[more] DoD hacker jailed for 21 months A US hacker convicted of infecting Department of Defense with a computer worm was last week sentenced to 21 months imprisonment.
Raymond Paul Steigerwalt, a 21 year-old Indiana resident and former member of the Thr34t Krew hacking group, was also ordered to pay $12,000 to the DoD in compensation for the damage he'd caused at a hearing before the US District Court in Alexandria.
Steigerwalt pleaded to a charge of conspiracy to commit fraud over his hacking activ......
[more] ISPs urged to throttle spam zombies The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), along with more than 35 government agencies worldwide, announced an ambitious effort on Tuesday to get ISPs and other organisations to deliver the net from the plague of zombie spam networks. The group is encouraging ISPs to identify and quarantine customers whose PCs may have unwittingly been turned into spam zombies, under the control of hackers.
ISPs are also being encouraged to apply rate-limiting controls for email......
[more] Symantec website under DDoS attack An email worm is recruiting computers for a coordinated attack on antivirus vendor Symantec's website.
Since Friday, email filtering vendor MessageLabs has intercepted 13,717 copies of the worm, dubbed Breatel.A-mm, and has issued a medium-level warning.
The worm travels as an email attachment, under the subject lines: "Message could not be delivered", "Error", or "Mail Delivery System".
If the attached file is opened, the computer connects to a botnet — a......
[more] Are online firms doing secret deals with DDoS attackers? A security expert from IBM has controversially suggested a number of large companies are still "more often than not" paying off cyber criminals threatening them with distributed denial-of-service attacks.
The accusation comes despite claims from many major online businesses who say they do not negotiate with criminals.
Speaking at Virus Bulletin 2005 in Dublin, malware specialist at IBM, Martin Overton, said the DDoS scams, which typica......
[more] DDoS attacks still biggest threat Companies should devote more resources to countering old-fashioned DDoS attacks when investing in security, a survey of global ISPs has argued.
The figures from Arbor Networks in its Worldwide ISP Security Report came from questionnaires sent to 36 large ISPs in the US, Europe and Asia.
Over 90 percent of ISPs surveyed cited simple "brute force" TCP SYN and UDP datagram DDoS floods from zombie PC networks as their biggest day-to-day hassle, a finding which sh......
[more] Botnet operation controlled 1.5m PCs A recently foiled botnet operation has turned out to be 15 times larger that police initially thought.
On further investigation, authorities found that the operation had put about 1.5 million computers and servers under its control. The crime ring was thought to have created a botnet of 100,000 systems, which they claimed was the largest ever detected.
A botnet is a collection of computers infected with a computer worm which puts the system under the worm......
[more] Attacks mounting on 'Million Dollar Home Page' The wildly successful pixel-powered Million Dollar Home Page is coming under intense DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack.
University student Alex Tew, who created the site to finance his schooling, has been selling pixels for US$1 each since September and auctioned the last 1,000 pixels earlier this week on eBay. The technicolor site resembles a well-traveled suitcase covered with stickers, ranging from Che Guevara's image to a stop-smokin......
[more] Hacker Jailed For Ddos Attack That Affected Three Million Internet Users, Reports Sophos More than one third of Spanish computer users affected.
Experts at SophosLabs, Sophos's global network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centres, have welcomed news that a hacker who stopped more than three million Spanish computer users from using the internet has been sentenced to two years in jail.
26-year-old Santiago Garrido used a computer worm to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attac......
[more] Vietnamese DDos attacker arrested A Vietnamese man accused of launching a large-scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack against a commercial website was arrested by local authorities. The attack on Vietco's website caused huge losses to the company, as it was forced to draft in 40 emergency technicians and left computer users unable to access the site.Nguyen Thanh Cong is suspected of beginning an attack on the Vietnamese e-commerce site in March 2006. The website, which has 67,000 re......
[more] Email attack ruling disputed The government is to appeal against a court ruling made last year that exposed serious holes in UK laws aimed at protecting businesses and individuals from cyber criminals.The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will next week challenge the original decision made by District Judge Kenneth Grant that saw a teenager acquitted after allegedly crashing his former employer's computer systems by sending five million emails.During last year's hearing at Wimbledon Magistrates'......
[more] Worm appears as Microsoft antipiracy program Security analysts have detected a new piece of malware that appears to run as a Microsoft program used to detect unlicensed versions of its operating system. The malware has been classified as a worm and spreads through AOL's Instant Messenger program, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, a security vendor. Sophos is calling it W32.Cuebot-K, a new variation in the Cuebot family of malware. The worm has a range of mal......
[more] AOL instant messenger worm poses as Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage AOL Instant messenger (IM) users were warned this week of a new worm that poses as Microsoft’s controversial Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program. Researchers at Sophos said the WGA worm, known as Cuebot-K, spreads by AOL Instant Messenger and registers itself as a new system driver service named wgavn. The malware uses Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Notification as a display name and runs during system startup, a......
[more] Spamhaus repels DDoS attack Spamhaus, the leading anti-spam organisation, has restored its site and services to normal after a distributed denial of service attack rendered its site temporarily inaccessible for several hours on Monday.The attack, launched from a botnet of compromised Windows PCs, witnessed a huge surge in spurious traffic to Spamhaus's web servers from 0900 BST until around 1400 BST.Steve Linford, director of Spamhaus Project, explained that the site was restored to normal oper......
[more] Florida 'botmaster' charged with Akamai DDOS attack A Florida man was in federal court today, accused of launching a DDOS attack on Akamai which brought much of the internet to its knees - for a few hours.John Bombard, 32, of Seminole is charged with hacking into two computer systems as part of a scheme to build a botnet of "zombie" PCs to attack Akamai. According to the FBI, Bombard compromised these systems using a variant of the GAOBOT worm. The bot network assembled for the Akamai......
[more] McAfee warns botnets could threaten infrastructure Researchers with McAfee released a whitepaper today that claims botnets could feasibly threaten most countries' infrastructures. Written by McAfee researchers Ken Baylor and Chris Brown, the whitepaper examines the growing problem of botnets through the lens of experience gained while protecting an unnamed Central American country. Botnets had repeatedly attacked the county's national telecommunications company, bringing its infrastructure to it......
[more] Hackers greet CafePress.com with holiday DoS attack The popular e-commerce website CafePress told members it was hit by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks this week. The site, which specializes in customizing items such as T-shirts, hats, and mugs, reported to members that it was experiencing problems due to the attack. As of Thursday, CafePress staff was working on the problem but said that they were still experiencing service disruptions. "As of right now some customers have acc......
[more] DDoS attacks deemed illegal in Sweden Distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS), where targets are deluged with requests for information, will be made a criminal offence in Sweden from 1 June.According to a draft amendment to existing hacking laws, perpetrators will face a maximum sentence of two years' imprisonment. There are currently no laws banning the attacks in Sweden.Last year, Swedish hackers launched a DDoS attack against the websites of the Swedish government and Swedish police aft......
[more] Last month's root-server attack revisited Last month's attack on at least six of the net's root servers was formidable, but thanks to the implementation of a technology designed to protect the infrastructure, only two were affected, according to a factsheet issued today by ICANN.The DDoS attack flooded the servers with a stunning amount of data, as much as 1 Gbps at points, according to the oversight group. But damage was relatively contained thanks to new load-balancing technology called Anyca......
[more] February DDoS attack 'badly damaged' two of 13 root web servers, says ICANN The Feb. 6 DDoS attack on the systems regarded as the backbone of the internet badly damaged two of the web's 13 root servers, but were prevented from causing more damage by Anycast load-balancing technology, according to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Beginning at 1 a.m. on Feb. 6, the web's main support system was attacked for 2 1/2 hours, followed hours later by an attack twice that d......
[more] American Idol voting campaign slammed with DDoS attack A popular but controversial website that asks fans of the hit US TV show "American Idol" to vote for the least talented contestant each week continues to be slammed by a distributed denial-of-service attack, the site's manager has admitted. VoteForTheWorst.com, said to be the programme's most popular web destination behind the official site, has angered "Idol" purists since its launch in 2004 because it seeks to keep around the mos......
[more] Firms hit rivals with web attacks Legitimate businesses are turning to cyber criminals to help them cripple rival websites, say security experts. The rise in industrial sabotage comes as some suggest cyber criminals are turning away from using web-based attack tools in extortion rackets. Experts suspect this is because of the risks involved in mounting such an attack on a web shop or retailer. Instead the tools, usually hijacked home computers, are being used to pump out junk e-mail. Cash call......
[more] Telegraph floored by DDoS attack The website of UK broadsheet the Daily Telegraph is returning to normal after a sustained denial of service attack left the site intermittently unavailable over the last two days.Unknown hackers bombarded the telegraph.co.uk with thousands of spurious requests from around 9am yesterday morning. The site was largely unavailable but returned to service at around 11am today before dropping offline at 2pm and returning later this afternoon. Such a pattern is not unu......
[more] Kremlin accused of DDoS cyber-bullying Russia has been used as the launch-pad for a new wave of cyber-attacks aimed at a number of political and media organisations within the country. The attacks targeted a number of organisations, including The Centre for Journalism in Extreme Situations, the newspaper Kommersant, radio station the Echo of Moscow, the United Civil Front, a political body run by former chess champion Garry Kasparov. The claim is that the attacks have happened with tacit approv......
[more] Mitigating the effects of a DDoS attack There's a great variety of attacks and hacks that black hats can perpetrate on your network. Fortunately, you can prevent most of them using an assortment of security measures. However, a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) is an entirely different story. You can't thwart a DDoS attack - they attack an IP address or service that's available to the internet.If you can't prevent such an attack, what can you do to protect your organisation? You can be......
[more] Email security vendors see PDF spam spike Email security vendors reported a spike in PDF spam this week that, because of the size of the messages, increased global spam traffic by as much as a third. Researchers at Commtouch first reported on Wednesday that PDF spam spiked over a 24-hour period, accounting then for 10 to 15 percent of all spam messages. Because PDF spam messages are as much as four times the size or traditional spam, the spike increased global spam traffic by 30 to 40 percent, a......
[more] Fake e-cards signal massive DDoS attack Security researchers are reporting a sharp increase in the number of machines infected by the Storm Worm, prompting speculation that its authors, who so far have limited their activities to spam, intend to use it for more destructive purposes, such as launching massive denial of service attacks.In June and July, internet security provider SecureWorks counted 1.7m unique hosts carrying the Storm Worm, compared with just 2,817 from January to May, according......
[more] 'We're not scared' of Storm, say researchers Reports that security researchers are running scared from hackers responsible for the Storm trojan are overblown, say some of the people who have dug into the complex malware. Last week Josh Corman of IBM's Internet Security Systems said that Storm, a multifaceted Trojan Horse that has been used to gather a substantial army of bots (or compromised computers), strikes back using distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks when it senses probes of its......
[more] Al Qaeda cyber-jihad to begin Nov. 11 Al Qaeda cyber-terrorists have announced they will launch an "electronic jihad" against online Western interests later this month, according to an Israeli news website. DEBKAfile, a Jerusalem-based website known for its coverage of Middle Eastern military and intelligence issues, reported Tuesday that al Qaeda cyber-attackers will target Western, Jewish and Israeli websites, as well as those of Muslims who do not fall in line with the terrorist group's fund......
[more] Attempted virus fumbles attack on F-Secure A highly buggy intended virus has been found to include an attempt to launch a DDoS attack on the websites of Finnish security firm F-Secure, alongside a suggestion that the firm's head of labs Mikko Hyppönen needs a haircut. The flawed parasitic malware, which appears to have been written by an old-style hobbyist virus writer and submitted directly to virus labs, corrupts files rather than infecting them and cannot launch its intended payloa......
[more] Program automating online jihad found in the wild Security researchers say they have discovered a program that could be used by Islamic terrorists to launch data attacks against Western targets.The "Electronic Program of Jihad," as its creators have dubbed it, asks for a username and password once it's installed, according to this entry on the McAfee Avert Labs Blog. The program, quoted as version 3.0, then tries to join a cyber jihadist website that coordinates the attack. Loyal user......
[more] Risk management: Calculated risk Sociologists claim that the element of risk is disappearing from our everyday lives, and that this is forcing increasing numbers of people to take up "extreme" sports. But business risk is a less-publicised issue, and information risk is playing an increasingly central role in this area. It's becoming a major part of compliance measurement and will soon be coming to an IT department near you - so what do you need to know about information risk management (IRM)?......
[more] UK gambling company warns of DDoS-attack risk A major UK gambling business has warned that all commercial websites are at risk from a new type of unstoppable and undetectable botnet denial-of-service attack. Gala Coral e-commerce's gambling sites were taken down for almost 30 minutes by the next-generation 10Gb distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, delegates at the e-Crime Congress 2008 in London were told this week.Cybercriminals disguised the build up of traffic from up to 30,000 PC an......
[more] What firewalls do and don’t do Over the last few years, security threats to companies have grown and altered dramatically and so have the defences. Traditional firewalls, installed over three years ago, are often not best suited for current threats and don't protect against a number of newer threats. What firewalls doA firewall is a system designed to prevent unauthorised access to or from a private computer network. Firewalls are frequently used to prevent unauthorised Internet users from acce......
[more] Internet has a trash problem, researcher says Between 1% and 3% of all traffic on the Internet is meaningless packets of information, used in distributed denial of service attacks (DDOS) to knock Web sites offline. Those are the findings of Arbor Networks, a network traffic analysis company that recently looked at traffic flowing among more than 68 Internet service providers to see how much of it was malicious."The thing that's surprising is it's consistently 1 to 3 percent," said Dan......
[more] Chernobyl coverage blows up in Radio Free Europe's face Websites run by Radio Free Europe have been under a fierce cyber attack that coincided with coverage over the weekend of a rally organized by opposition to the Belarusian opposition. The distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack initially targeted only the RFE's Belarus service, which starting on Saturday was inundated with as many as 50,000 fake pings every second, according the this RFE account. On Monday, it continued to be affected.......
[more] Malware to hit 1 million mark in days Security vendor, F-Secure is days away from capturing its unprecedented one millionth piece of malware. "Gone are the days where you had to worry about someone trying to rob your car or mug you in the streets. Thanks to the internet, we now have to worry about criminals that are far away." This was the grave warning Chia Wing Fei, security response team manager at F-Secure’s Malaysian headquarters, gave to a room full of visiting journalists last week......
[more] Security SAAS Makes Messaging Strides Security in the cloud, also called Security SAAS, is currently focused on messaging security, but expect the concept to include remote vulnerability testing, malware filtering, URL blocking, browser proxy security and other areas as the enterprise work force relies more on mobility and applications in the cloud. Efforts at security in the cloud, also called Security SAAS, are currently focused on messaging security, but expect the concept to expand as the e......
[more] Another ex-Soviet state under fire in web attack Hackers took down the website for the president of Georgia in yet another attack on the governments of former Soviet states. The website was knocked offline by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack over the weekend, yet another in a series of cyberattacks attacks against countries experiencing political friction with Russia. The presidential website was down for about a day starting early Saturday until Sunday, according to the Shadowser......
[more] US teen admits to 'Anonymous' DDoS attack on Scientology A New Jersey man has admitted he participated in January's high-profile cyber attack on the Church of Scientology that took its website offline and caused as much as $70,000 worth of damage. Dmitriy Guzner, 18, of Verona, New Jersey, helped carry out the crippling distributed denial of service (DDoS) assault because he believed it furthered the goals of the anti-Scientology group "Anonymous," to which he claimed to belong, accor......
[more] 10 Questions to Ask an IT-Security Consultant Finding the right IT-security consultant is a little like searching for a good family doctor. You need to hire someone who is intelligent, insightful, understanding and a good communicator. To get to the truth and discover if the person you're interviewing really knows his or her stuff, you'll need to ask some offbeat and tricky questions. Here are 10 questions to use in your search for an IT-security consultant: 1. What is the danger posed by the M......
[more] Anti-fraud site targeted in Joe Job attack Fraudsters have upped the ante in their fight to discredit a respected UK-based anti-fraud website. The email address of Bobbear.co.uk, which fights phishing fraud by exposing groups attempting to recruit money mules, was spoofed in obscene emails. The Joe Job attack represents a further attempt to make life difficult for Bobbear.co.uk, which operates on a voluntary basis, and site administrator Bob Harrison. Just over a week ago the site came under a......
[more] UK site offers bounty for DDoS attackers A UK-based online computer reseller has offered a £10,000 reward for assistance in convicting those responsible for a sustained distributed-denial-of-service attack on the site. Overclockers.co.uk (OcUK), which doubles as a technology-enthusiast site and as a reseller of computer goods, said the attack has disrupted its retail and forums servers for more than 10 days. In a forum post on Wednesday, the company said it would pay the reward for information......
[more] D-Link puts CAPTCHA on home router Home router vendor D-Link has taken the unusual step of adding a CAPTCHA login to its range of broadband routers in order to bolster them against automated Internet attacks. Only one product currently includes the technology, the DIR-685 Wireless N Storage Router, but a number of others will shortly add it to their feature set by upgrade, the DIR-615, DIR-635, DIR-655, DIR-825, and DIR-855. All future products in this part of the market will include CAPTCHA, t......
[more] Inside Korea's Cyber Attack Details are emerging from the massive cyber attack that hit South Korea and the U.S. earlier this month -- showing security researchers what went right in stemming the tide. Initially, the South Korea government blamed North Korea for the attack, though no solid evidence has yet been put forth to support that claim. In the meantime, researchers are learning precisely how large the attack had been and how it had been achieved. As it turns out, South Korea, which is......
[more] AV vendors fight 'scareware' with new whitelist Security vendors have decided to take on the plague of bogus anti-virus software circulating on the Internet by creating a public list of legitimate vendors and programs. Run from the website of the Common Computing Security Standards Forum (CCSS), an organisation set up in March of this year by by Comodo CEO and chief security architect, Melih Abdulhayoglu, the purpose is to give ordinary Internet users something with which to check programs and......
[more] FAQ: The ins and outs of DoS attacks Thursday's denial-of-service attack that knocked Twitter offline for a few hours and affected Facebook, LiveJournal, and Google Sites and Blogger wasn't your average attack. Typically, someone who has a bone to pick with a specific Web site will round up some hijacked PCs and use them to try to shut the site down. In this case, whoever was responsible was trying to block access to a specific user's accounts and not the sites themselves. Denial-of-service at......
[more] Twitter's Biz Stone: Lessons learned from crippling DDoS attack Twitter Inc. co-founder Biz Stone said that the denial-of-service attack that knocked the microblogging site offline last week convinced him that the company has to quickly muscle up to deal with its phenomenal popularity and the problems success brings. In an interview on the PBS television show Tavis Smiley, slated to air tonight, Stone discussed last week's DDoS attack on Twitter that brought the site down for two hours, leaving......
[more] Outspoken cop questions whether to "turn the Internet off" Panic erupts as IT security issues hit mainstream television. Australian internet users might understandably be pulling the plug on their broadband connections overnight, after a program aired on national broadcaster ABC highlighted the risks and repercussions of going online. Brian Hay, detective superintendent for fraud and corporate crime at the Queensland Police, gave the ABC's current affairs program Four Corners the ultimate sound......
[more] Cisco flaw enables 'simulated' DDoS attack Cisco has released a patch for IOS, the company's network operating system, to fix a flaw that could have allowed a remote attacker to shut down Cisco routers, simulating a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. Ty Miller, chief technical officer at Pure Hacking, said the most recent IOS flaw was in Cisco's Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which tells the router where to redirect traffic. By exploiting the flaw remotely, he said, criminals cou......
[more] Pirate Bay clampdown prompted file sharing site spike Attempts to shut down notorious torrent tracker site The Pirate Bay have spurred a four-fold increase in the number of file sharing websites during the third quarter of 2009. At least some of these sites are primarily designed to distribute scareware and other types of malware rather than pirated content. Net security firm McAfee reports that a 300 per cent increase in file sharing sites that offer music and films has been accompanied by a s......
[more] How to DDOS a federal wiretap Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say they've discovered a way to circumvent the networking technology used by law enforcement to tap phone lines in the U.S. The flaws they've found "represent a serious threat to the accuracy and completeness of wiretap records used for both criminal investigation and as evidence in trial," the researchers say in their paper, set to be presented Thursday at a computer security conference in Chicago.
Following up on earl......
[more] Cybercrooks getting bolder experts warn Online crime could become more direct and aggressive in the coming months, according security experts. In its annual Future Threat Report, security firm Trend Micro suggested that an increasingly crowded underground market could push cybercriminals to adopt new and more aggressive approaches to parting users and their money. Specifically, Trend suggested that bank accounts themselves will be increasingly targeted. Rather than steal payment information or......
[more] Activists turn 'hacktivists' on the web Among activists who hack to make a point, some stay firmly on the right side of the law but others push the idea of civil disobedience to the limits. Whatever the Chaos Computer Club's name suggests, Europe's largest hacker group is not intent on bedlam. For CCC member Frank Rieger, the word hacking - the process of reconfiguring or reprogramming a system to do things that its inventor never intended - needs to be reclaimed, and stripped of negative conno......
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