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Distributed Denial-of-Service Attacks and Midsize Firms

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack occurs every two minutes, and the number of victims that suffered from more than one attack has risen substantially, according to a new report released by security firm NSFOCUS in SecurityWeek. These attacks are not just high profile any longer, and that is a wake-up call to midsize firms, which are a key target for hackers for many reasons. DDoS Too Often NSFOCUS’s research found that 1.29 DDoS attacks strike somewhere online every two minutes. More than 90 percent of the attacks last less than half an hour. NSFOCUS ascertained that attacks generally remained short and did not go past the rate of 50 Mbps. The number of victims suffering more than one DDoS attack went up 30 percent in just a year, rising to 70 percent. Victims who suffered from only one attack went down from 51 percent last year to 31 percent this year. Interestingly, the study found that hacktivism was the key driver behind more than 91 percent of attacks. Also, online gaming communities and financial services are often targets. What Fuels It The survey also found that a lack of sufficient security, including poor passwords, has fueled the success of DDoS attacks. IT professionals at midsize firms have DDoS attacks on their radar screens since reports in the past few years have shown that the attacks are not just for high-profile purposes. Easily executed attacks that can do the most damage are ideal for today’s cybercriminals; that means midsize firms are at risk. Midsize firms are constantly concerned about having sufficient resources, personnel, money and time to remain competitive, so security must be a top priority for IT professionals, and those who work with third-party data centers should inquire what kind of DDoS protection is provided. Those that manage their own data centers must take the right precautions against botnets and application-layer DDoS attacks on the premises of the network. Also, by working with trusted and experienced security vendors, midsize firms can bring their own security to the next level. When all is said and done, firewalls no longer provide enough protection. A Worthy Investment Distributed denial-of-service attacks are growing, and midsize companies are falling victim. Cybercriminals know that they can successfully hit a lot of growing firms at once and make easy money. They know that some midsize firms do not take security seriously because it might be too costly or time-consuming to consider. In the end, the unprepared midsize firm loses resources, time and money to the costly consequences of a DDoS attack. IT professionals must prioritize security to maintain their company’s competitive edge. Source: http://midsizeinsider.com/en-us/article/distributed-denial-of-service-attacks-an

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Distributed Denial-of-Service Attacks and Midsize Firms

London schoolboy secretly arrested over ‘world’s biggest cyber attack’

A London schoolboy has been secretly arrested over the “world’s biggest cyber attack” as part of an international swoop against a suspected organised crime gang. The 16-year-old was detained by detectives at his home in south-west London after “significant sums of money” were found to be “flowing through his bank account”. He was also logged on to what officials say were “various virtual systems and forums” and had his computers and mobiles seized as officers worked through the night to secure potential evidence. The boy’s arrest, by detectives from the National Cyber Crime Unit, followed an international police operation against those suspected of carrying out a cyber attack so large that it slowed down the internet. The “distributed denial of service” or “DDoS” attack was directed at the Dutch anti-spam group Spamhaus which patrols the web to stop prolific spammers filling inboxes with adverts for counterfeit Viagra, bogus weight-loss pills and other illegal products. Details of the arrest, which happened in April, had been kept secret, but have been disclosed to the Evening Standard ahead of the formation of the Government’s new National Crime Agency. It will take over the National Cyber Crime Unit as part of a drive against offending carried out over the internet, now seen as one of the most serious crime-fighting challenges. More than half of the 4,000 officers who will form the new agency next month will be trained in combating cyber crime. The arrest of the London schoolboy, whose identity has not been disclosed, came during a series of coordinated raids with international police forces. Others detained included a 35-year-old Dutchman living in Spain. A briefing document seen by this newspaper on the British investigation, codenamed Operation Rashlike, states that the attack was the “largest DDoS attack ever seen” and that it had a “worldwide impact” on internet exchanges. The document says services affected included the London Internet Exchange and that although the impact was eventually “mitigated” it managed to cause “worldwide disruption of the functionality” of the internet. Giving details of the schoolboy’s alleged involvement, the briefing note states: “The suspect was found with his computer systems open and logged on to various virtual systems and forums. The subject has a significant amount of money flowing through his bank account. Financial investigators are in the process of restraining monies.” The boy has been released on bail until later this year. The disclosure of his arrest follows two cyber attacks on banks. Four men have appeared in court over the first, involving an alleged plot to take over Santander computers by fitting a device during maintenance work. Another eight were arrested over a £1.3?million theft by a gang who took control of a Barclays computer. Meanwhile, security minister James Brokenshire said the creation National Crime Agency would bolster efforts to combat organised criminals operating on the internet and ensure that “cyber gangsters” were left with no hiding place. “The new National Crime Agency’s Cyber Crime Unit will pursue the organised crime gangs behind the online crimes that blight people’s lives and cost the economy millions,” he added. Source: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/london-schoolboy-secretly-arrested-over-worlds-biggest-cyber-attack-8840766.html

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London schoolboy secretly arrested over ‘world’s biggest cyber attack’

What’s Next for DDoS Attacks?

Sept. 18 marks the one-year anniversary of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters’ first announcement about distributed-denial-of-service attacks to be waged against the U.S. financial services industry This self-proclaimed hacktivist group, which U.S. government officials have suggested is being backed by the Iranian government, has for the last 12 months targeted the online banking platforms of nearly every top 100 U.S. banking institution. The group has claimed it’s attacking U.S. banks because of outrage over a YouTube movie trailer deemed offensive to Muslims. The group’s attacks against banks for the last several months have been unsuccessful at taking sites down. And its Phase 4 campaign is in a lull. Still, experts caution banking institutions against letting their guards down. And they warn that the government, media, healthcare and energy sectors could be among the next targets. That’s because banking institutions have enhanced their defenses, so other sectors are easier targets. Some experts, including McAfee Labs and Arbor Networks, expect that al-Qassam could join forces with the Syrian Electronic Army, a collective of attackers that supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to attack a variety of U.S. websites. Experts urge organizations to update their DDoS defenses. Botnet Remains Strong Scott Hammack CEO of DDoS-mitigation provider Prolexic, says that despite the recent lull in al-Qassam’s attacks, there’s no indication that the group’s botnet, known as Brobot, is waning. “We have validated thousands of infected web servers that can potentially participate in future campaigns. We still don’t see the scale of the attacks we saw five months ago, but we are definitely seeing a lot of probing,” he says, which suggests more attacks are on the way. DDoS attacks over the last five months have not been as large, but that should not be misinterpreted to mean Brobot has been retired, Hammack says. “Maybe Iran, with their new leaders, are saying ‘Cool off a little bit.’ But the gun is still loaded. They still have the arsenal at their disposal; they just haven’t fired it in a while.” If al-Qassam were to unite with other cybergroups, such as the Syrian Electronic Army, it could mark a new era of cyberwarfare against the U.S., experts say. “We have to realize this is cyberterrorism,” says Ashley Stephenson, CEO of Corero Network Security. “The disruption, the publicity, the nuisance, the investment these banks have to make … the success of terrorism is not just the act itself, but the amount it costs the victims [for defenses],” he says. Banking institutions and those in other sectors have to continually enhance and update their DDoS defenses, he says, “so that no one needs to panic on the day of an attack” Training Ground al-Qassam’s attacks have served as a training ground for other attackers, says Dan Holden of DDoS-mitigation firm Arbor Networks. “In terms of DDoS in general, we will see more DNS amplification attacks. It’s not that difficult,” he says. A DNS amplification attack relies on a much larger list of DNS servers to amplify the attack. “The attackers are going to have to get better and bigger to take anyone down,” Holden says. That’s because DDoS defenses have improved across the board, although some industries, such as banking, are further along in their mitigation strategies than others, Holden explains. The real question about al-Qassam’s future is not how its attacks might be waged, but rather who will be the target, he says. Holden says he doesn’t see the attacks themselves changing; but the targets will change. “I would be surprised if they continue attacking the banks,” he says. “At this point, what is the point? Something’s got to change.” Cyber-attackers Unite? Because the Syrian Electronic Army and al-Qassam both have waged DDoS attacks to gain attention for their social and political causes, some experts expect them to join forces. While al-Qassam has focused on banks, the SEA’s primary targets have been media and government sites, according to McAfee Labs . Now, DDoS experts, including McAfee Labs, argue both groups have similar interests in taking down U.S. sites, and by joining forces, they could use Brobot for a renewed purpose. One industry expert, who asked not to be named, says the distinction between the SEA and al-Qassam has increasingly blurred. “Isn’t the Syrian Army likely the same guys as al-Qassam? And if you look at the geopolitical stuff, the two align,” this expert says. “They’re holding off attacks because they’re waiting to see what happens with Syria, frankly. And the banks are defending well, so they will move on to a new target. Besides, using the movie as an excuse for attacks is not effective or really being believed anymore.” “The Syrian Electronic Army has said quite clearly that if the U.S. does anything [as far as military strikes] they are coming after us,” Arbor Networks’ Holden says. “And if there is any sympathy for that, it’s a great excuse for QCF [al-Qassam Cyber Fighters] to repurpose and retool their botnet for something else. They could jump onboard there. This is the perfect excuse to change the story about attacking because of the video. This is the perfect cover.” If forces do unite, Holden says other critical infrastructure sectors, beyond banking, will likely be targeted, possibly defense contractors, rather than government itself. “I don’t foresee government being a target, but, instead, a weaker vertical,” Holden says. “If anything government-focused were to be attacked, I would think it would be government contractors that would be somehow associated with Syria.” Holden says e-commerce sites also could be prime targets. “[Those sites] are obviously related to capitalism, like the banks, and the money lost would be huge,” he says. “The impact would be very real, given how much commerce occurs over the Internet.” Media sites could be another target, Holden says. Regulatory Oversight Because of ongoing DDoS threats, more regulatory and legislative oversight related to how critical infrastructure industries address DDoS risks is likely on the way, says Corero’s Stephenson. “The attacks have heightened the need for guidance or legislation, whether that’s from the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] or an international agency like the European Commission,” he says. The need for more regulation and cross-industry collaboration has been highlighted by al-Qassam’s attacks, Stephenson adds. DDoS attacks have become a part of everyday business, and all sectors should be sharing threat intelligence, Stephenson says “One of the things I took away from this last year is that the banks really have learned a lot,” he says. “This type of cyberthreat is now business as usual. This is going to be a continuous threat and an ongoing risk of doing business online, and I don’t think we’re going to win here by keeping attack information secret.” The more organizations disclose about the attacks they suffer, the stronger defenses can be built, Stephenson says. “That’s where the vendors come in,” he says. “When they have an attack that is defeated, they can put the information together and pass that on to the authorities. A year ago, that wasn’t happening like it is today,” and there’s always room for improvement. Source: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/whats-next-for-ddos-attacks-a-6074

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What’s Next for DDoS Attacks?

DDoS: The Need for Updated Defenses Lessons Learned from a Year of Attacks Against Banks

In the wake of a year of attacks waged against banking institutions by Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters, the FS-ISAC’s Bill Nelson and the ABA’s Doug Johnson say the need to regularly update DDoS preparedness is a critical lesson learned. As the one-year anniversary of the start of the hacktivists’ distributed-denial-of-service attacks against U.S. banks approaches, banks need to avoid complacency and leverage new mitigation tools to ensure protection against any DDoS attack from any group, the two experts say. By taking advantage of cyber-intelligence and DDoS mitigation toolkits provided by the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center and others, banking institutions of all sizes can help prevent online outages and mimimize risk for fraud , says Nelson, who heads the FS-ISAC in the U.S. FS-ISAC’s DDoS toolkit, which has been updated three times in the last year, is available to all institutions, not just FS-ISAC members. “We’ve worked to get this out to associations and third-party banking service providers, which really have a very important role as far as DDoS,” Nelson says in an interview with Information Security Media Group. “The Web hosting environment can impact numerous institutions.” A DDoS preparedness plan should address hardware security risks, ensure sufficient bandwidth and outline collaboration with third-party service providers, Nelson says. “Setting up in advance, not just waiting to see your name on a Pastebin post, is critical,” he says. Johnson, who oversees risk management for the American Bankers Association, says institutions have to band together to ensure they have the right plans in place. “It does take that village to ensure the institutions are asking the right questions,” he says. “The threat environment is substantially different than it was before these attacks.” Beyond al-Qassam On Sept. 18, 2012, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters announced the launch of its first wave of attacks against U.S. institutions to protest a movie trailer deemed offensive to Muslims. These attacks have forever changed the way the online world approaches DDoS, Nelson says. “When we realized this DDoS attack was different … we realized quickly that we needed to stand up and create an incident response team,” he says. “The reaction was really effective, and it proved how effective information sharing could be.” But Johnson says one lesson the industry has learned over the last year is that DDoS is not just about hacktivism, and banking institutions need to be concerned about attacks from any number of players. “It’s about the broad number of DDoS attacks that the industry is suffering [attacks] from a variety of parties,” he says. For community banks, the greatest concern is not online disruption, but the threat of DDoS attacks being waged to mask fraud, Johnson says. Source: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/interviews/ddos-need-for-updated-defenses-i-2059

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DDoS: The Need for Updated Defenses Lessons Learned from a Year of Attacks Against Banks

Countering Attacks Hiding In Denial-Of-Service Smokescreens

Denial-of-service attacks have long been considered the blunt wooden club of online hazards, a multi-gigabit stream of shock and awe. Yet, increasingly the noisy attacks are being used to hide more subtle infiltrations of a target’s network. A number of financial institutions, for example, have been targeted by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks immediately following a wire transfer, according to security firms familiar with the cases. The attacks, generated by computers infected with the DirtJumper DDoS malware, attempt to disrupt any response to the fraudulent transfer of funds, which are usually in the six-figure dollar range, according to a report by Dell Secureworks published in April. “The analogy is signal jamming,” says Kevin Houle, director of threat intelligence for managed security provider Dell Secureworks. “To the extent that you can use the DDoS attack to do cause chaos electronically, to prevent access to particular systems during an attack, the tactic has proven successful.” While DirtJumper has focused on causing chaos immediately following money transfers, the technique could be generalized to other attack scenarios. A variation of the attack has been used by Iranian hacktivists groups to disrupt the online operations of U.S. financial institutions by hiding more subtle application-layer attacks within larger packet floods. And South Korean companies were flooded with data while malware deleted information on organizations’ servers. “Your goal is to sow confusion,” says Vann Abernethy, a senior product manager at NSFOCUS, a DDoS mitigation firm. “A DDoS attack is designed to get your IT department to run around like their hair is on fire.” In addition, noisy DDoS attacks could attract more attackers, says Terrence Gareau, principal security architect for Prolexic, a DDoS mitigation firm. A very public attack could convince other groups to attempt their own operations in the chaos, he says. “If it’s a very public attack, then there is a high probability that other opportunistic attackers could take part as well,” Gareau says. “Opportunistic criminals will say, wow they are under a DDoS attack, so lets look at the network and see what changes have been made.” Companies need to structure their response group to handle a large infrastructure attack, but not be blinded by the influx of alerts to their system. Like magicians, the goal of the attackers is to force the security staff to only pay attention to a distraction to keep them from discovering the actual trick. “You almost have to have a team that deals with the infrastructure attack, and a separate group that goes into hyper-vigilance to find any other attacks coming in,” says NSFOCUS’s Abernethy. A third-party provider, who can use intelligence from attacks on other customers to more quickly identify new attacks, can help eliminate much of the inbound attack traffic, dialing down the volume of alerts that the security team has to process. The level of alerts seen by a security team during a denial-of-service attacks can increase by an order of magnitude. Filtering them out at the edge of the Internet can greatly reduce the impact on a business’s network and employees. “If you don’t have to have all those alerts on your network, you can pay attention to what matters,” Prolexic’s Gareau says. “Using a third part mitigation provider can significantly reduce the noise.” Yet, attacks that use a variety of traffic and techniques in a short time period can cause problems for denial-of-service mitigation firms, says Lance James, head of intelligence for Vigilance, a threat information firm that is now part of Deloitte. “They are not perfect,” James says. “We still see major banks going down. But they do well against long period term DDoS attacks.” While DirtJumper, also known as Drive, is not the only botnet that is used for combined attacks, it a popular one. DirtJumper has a half dozen ways of attacking infrastructure, including flooding Web sites with GET requests and POST requests, targeting infrastructure with two types of IP floods, and using UDP packets to slow down networks. Source: http://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/countering-attacks-hiding-in-denial-of-s/240161237

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Countering Attacks Hiding In Denial-Of-Service Smokescreens

9/11 DDoS Alert for Banks, Agencies

U.S. and Israeli government agencies and banking institutions should be on alert for a potential Sept. 11 wave of distributed-denial-of-service attacks launched by the same groups behind the unsuccessful Operation USA and Operation Israel attacks in May. That warning comes from cybersecurity experts and alerts issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center. While OpUSA and OpIsrael, which were designed to take down websites operated by globally recognized brands and governmental agencies, were not successful, cybersecurity experts say the threat this time is genuine. The groups behind these attacks are now more organized, better equipped and trained, and more determined than they were the first time around, they say. The FBI, however, notes that the attacks are not expected to have a serious or significant impact. “It is thought that due to the fact that hackers will be relying on commercial tools to exploit known vulnerabilities, and not developing custom tools or exploits, that the skill levels are, at best rudimentary, and capable of causing only temporary disruptions of any of the targeted organizations,” the FBI alert states. Attack Alerts On Aug. 5, the FS-ISAC issued a warning to its membership about a new wave of DDoS attacks that could target U.S. banks. David Floreen, senior vice president of the Massachusetts Bankers Association , says the FBI, which issued a separate alert on Aug. 30, and the FS-ISAC asked banking associations to spread the word about the possibility of attacks. “The attacks are expected to occur in two phases,” notes the FBI alert. “Phase I will take place over a period of 10 days and target several commercial and government sites with DDoS attacks. … “Phase II is scheduled to take place on September 11, with a more widespread attack threatened, along with Web defacements.” The FBI recommends organizations: Implement data backup and recovery plans; Outline DDoS mitigation strategies; Scan and monitor e-mail attachments for malicious links or code; and Mirror and maintain images of critical systems files The FBI did not release its alert to the public, an FBI spokeswoman acknowledges. But in an effort to get the word out, the Massachusetts Bankers Association posted the FBI and FS-ISAC warnings on its site, Floreen says. The FS-ISAC alert names top-tier banks that are likely to be targeted during an upcoming attack. The list of potential attack targets includes the same 133 U.S. banking institutions named in the April 24 Anonymous post that appeared on Pastebin during the first OpUSA campaign, says financial fraud expert Al Pascual, an analyst with consultancy Javelin Strategy & Research. The FS-ISAC alert does not reference OpIsrael, but experts say OpUSA and OpIsrael are connected. Planning Attacks Gary Warner, a cyberthreat researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who also works for the anti- phishing and anti- malware firm Malcovery, claims the hacktivist groups’ main focus, for now, is Israel. If attacks against Israeli targets are successful, then U.S. targets will be next, he warns. Since June, two hacktivist groups, AnonGhost and Mauritanian Attacker, have been building plans for OpIsrael Reborn, according to Warner’s research. So far, these groups have not been linked to new attacks planned for a sequel to OpUSA, Warner says. Both groups, however, were involved in OpIsrael and OpUSA, he notes. “As part of our process of watching the phishers who create counterfeit bank websites, we track where many of those criminals hang out and what sorts of things they are discussing,” he says. “We became aware of OpIsrael Reborn while reviewing posts made by criminals who have been phishing U.S. banks and Internet companies.” Announcements for the new campaign began Sept. 2. But more posts were added on Facebook and in underground forums within the last week to recruit additional attackers, he says. “AnonGhost and Mauritanian Attacker have taken the time to build a strong coalition of hackers,” Warner says. “In that June release, there were no dates, no members and no targets announced.” Since that time, attackers have honed their targets, and they claim to have already compromised several government and banking sites in Israel, he says. On Sept. 11, they plan to publish information they’ve compromised from during those attacks, Warner adds. “They claim [on YouTube ] they are going to begin publishing the internal government documents of Israel,” he says. “The video also makes reference to the recent FBI claim that they have dismantled Anonymous.” Attackers are uniting this time out of anger over those claims made by the FBI as well as recent attacks waged against Islamic businesses believed to be backed by an Israeli hacktivist group, Warner explains. So why is this wave of attacks being taken more seriously than the first OpIsrael? The sheer number of attackers, their tools and the way the hacktivist groups have been building momentum through social networking sites such as Facebook has raised serious concern, Warner says. “They’ve been gathering tools since June 9, and training attackers on how do SQL and DDoS attacks,” he says. “It’s a SANS-quality training for hackers, and they’re prepping for wiping Israel off the [online] map.” On Sept. 9, two Israeli government websites were successfully taken offline for a period of time, Warner adds. “We did not see that success in OpIsrael or OpUSA,” he says. “If they pull this thing off against Israel, they will keep hitting others,” he says. No Attack Link to Al-Qassam Experts, including Warner, say Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters , the self-proclaimed hacktivist group that’s been targeting U.S. banks since September 2012, does not appear to be involved in these most recent campaigns. And although U.S. banking institutions have built up strong online defenses over the last year to mitigate cyber-threats such as DDoS attacks, other sectors are far less prepared, Javelin’s Pascual says. “The lack of success that Izz ad-Din al-Qassam achieved during the fourth round of DDoS attacks was indicative of how well fortified U.S. banks have become,” Pascual says. But Rodney Joffe , senior technologist at DDoS-mitigation provider Neustar, says security professionals should be concerned that other attackers have learned lessons from al-Qassam’s strikes. “I don’t believe there is any connection between OpUSA and AQCF [al-Qassam Cyber Fighters],” he says. “However, the reason I think it is more worrying this time is because, as I have said over and over, the underground learned a lot of groundbreaking lessons from AQCF. … And this time around, they may be more successful.” Source: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/911-ddos-alert-for-banks-agencies-a-6054

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9/11 DDoS Alert for Banks, Agencies

SatoshiDice hit by DDoS attack, but bets continue

Bitcoin gambling site SatoshiDice has recovered after being felled for several days by a DDoS attack. The site went down several days ago, and was inaccessible from the Internet. Erik Voorhees, who created the site and sold it for $11.5 million in July, no longer runs the site, but naturally still has insights into how it operates. DDoS attacks happen a lot to bitcoin gambling sites, he said. “They largely wasted their money,” he said of the attackers, pointing out that the website isn’t needed for the placing of bets. It simply provides information about bet statistics, and bitcoin addresses to send to. These addresses are constant, available outside of the main site, and can easily be retained by regular gamblers even when the site goes down, meaning that bets can still be processed. “They’d have to launch an attack against the whole bitcoin network,” Voorhees said. There is a back-end computer processing the bets, but this isn’t the same computer that hosts the website. Attackers could potentially disrupt betting if they were able to find that machine, but Voorhees points out that it could easily be moved. The attack didn’t seem to affect the site’s popularity in the long term. SatoshiDice vanity addresses made up eight of the most popular bitcoin addresses used on the network overnight. Source: http://www.coindesk.com/satoshidice-hit-by-ddos-attack-but-bets-continue/

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SatoshiDice hit by DDoS attack, but bets continue

DOSarrest begins Offering Vulnerability Testing and Optimization

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA–(Marketwired – Aug. 14, 2013) – DOSarrest Internet Security announced today that it will begin offering a website Vulnerability Testing and Optimization ( VTO ) service. The services is a comprehensive test that will intelligently crawl a website and find any vulnerabilities in the site’s coding, as well as analyze the structure of the website to see what can be optimized for better performance, all for a safer and better web experience for your visitors. The Vulnerability portion of the scan is able to analyze web code while it is being executed, even for a very large site with dynamic pages, and test with the most advanced SQL Injection and Cross Site Scripting (XSS) analyzers. A report is provided at the end that details all identified security breaches and the line of code that is the culprit as well as how to fix it. A secondary Optimization scan is executed again on all pages within a website, applying best practice rule sets which identify what elements and design structure can be optimized, and how to do it. A DOSarrest security specialist will walk the customer through the report and retest if necessary. “Our customers have come to greatly appreciate our efforts, to not only protect them from DDoS attacks, but to also assist their IT operations in securing their web servers in house “, says Jag Bains, CTO of DOSarrest. Bains, goes on to state “We’re able to leverage our experience and expertise to provide our customers a framework for securing their operations. With web application hacking on the rise, the VTO service is taking our customer partnerships to another level.” More information on this service can be found at: http://www.dosarrest.com/en/vulnerability-testing.html . About DOSarrest Internet Security: DOSarrest founded in 2007 in Vancouver, BC, Canada is one of only a couple of companies worldwide to specialize in only cloud based DDoS protection services. Their global client base includes mission critical ecommerce websites in a wide range of business segments including financial, health, media, education and government. Their innovative systems, software and exceptional service has been leading edge for over 6 years now.

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DOSarrest begins Offering Vulnerability Testing and Optimization

UCAS under DDoS attack

Ucas has been the victim of a hacking attempt, when its website was the target of a denial of service attack. The site was unavailable late on 14 August, the day before thousands of A-level students were due to receive their results across the country. A spokesperson for Ucas said: “The UCAS website suffered a sustained, criminal ‘denial of service’ attack. The site was down for an hour and then restored fully. No personal information was compromised. Confirmation and Clearing went ahead as normal. The attack originated in the Asia Pacific region and the police have been informed.” The chief executive of Ucas, Mary Curnock Cook, speaking to the Huffington Post, said staff were ‘pretty upset’ at the attempt. “The incident was contained very, very quickly and no personal data was released to anybody.” As of yesterday evening, over one million students had logged into Track. Ucas placed nearly double the number of students through clearing this year, in comparison with numbers from last year. 7,970 students had found a place through clearing, compared with 4,180 last year. The attempt to wreck the system was stopped, thanks to new technology that Ucas have installed in their software. Cumock Cook said: “This year we have made a step-change in our technology arrangements and most of our critical services are deployed in the cloud, which gives us massive resilience.” Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/ucas-hacked-ahead-of-alevel-results-8770993.html

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UCAS under DDoS attack

Police nab alleged DDoS extortion gang at Heathrow Airport

Two Polish men were arrested at Heathrow Airport earlier this week in connection with an alleged DDoS extortion attack on a Manchester-based business, news sources have reported. Details are light but it is known that a website connected to the business was brought down during the attack, which happened at an unspecified time before the 7 August arrests. “This investigation centres on an allegation that the on-line company was blackmailed,” said Detective Inspector Chris Mossop, of Greater Manchester Police’s Serious Crime Division “As part of this blackmail attempt, one of the company’s websites was made temporarily unavailable by the offenders,” he added. “Denial of service attacks have become increasingly common offences in recent years and can have a devastating effect on the victim’s on-line business or presence.” The investigation continued in several countries, including the UK, the US and Poland, police said. Although such cases rarely come to light, cyber-extortion has flourished in the last decade. In almost every case, DDoS is the weapon of choice.  These days, small and medium-size businesses are the usual target because they are far less likely to have DDoS mitigation in place to defend themselves. The other less common technique involves attackers stealing data and threatening to release it unless a ransom is paid. An example of this type of attack came to light last year when a Belgian bank was blackmailed by hackers. Last December, hackers tried to extort $4,000 AUS (£2,600) from a medical centre in Australia after breaching its network and encrypting its customer database. A recent survey suggested that one in five UK businesses had been affected by DDoS attacks during 2012. Source: http://news.techworld.com/security/3463285/police-nab-alleged-ddos-extortion-gang-at-heathrow-airport/

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Police nab alleged DDoS extortion gang at Heathrow Airport