Tag Archives: ddos-attacks

Extratorrent down – Massive DDoS attack against popular torrent website

The worlds number 4 torrent website is down following a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack by unknown hackers. The website seems to have been down for 23 hours and seems to come online for little bit before throwing up a 503 service error. The Extratorrent admin took to Twitter to tell its fans about the DDoS attack ExtraTorrent was one of the more popular torrent websites in 2014. It has grown in size due to more traffic and has moved up again in the top 10, now placed as the 4th most-visited torrent site by torrent ranking websites. This success didn’t go unnoticed by rightsholders groups such as the MPAA who recently called out ExtraTorrent as one of the top pirate sites. The site was forced to trade in its .com domain for .cc this year, after it was suspended by its domain registrar. The Isitdownrightnow says that Extratorrent has been down for past 23 hours (now it says 4 minutes because the website sprang to live for few seconds before going down again While the admin says that its a DDoS attack by unknown hackers, the actual reason may be a takedown by authorities or a revenge DDoS by the music and movie companies. Earlier Sony had allegedly undertaken a similar kind of DoS attacks to stop the torrents sites from sharing the files from the massive hack attack. Reader may note that only two days back around 13 mega Hollywood movie screener versions were leaked and being shared on torrent websites. These movies are considered to be prime Oscar award contenders and it is though that one of the guild members or his/her associates may have leaked these screener versions. Source: http://www.techworm.net/2015/01/extratorrent-down-hackers-launch-ddos-attack.html

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Extratorrent down – Massive DDoS attack against popular torrent website

Nordea bank’s online services hit by DDoS Attack

Nordea Bank Finland was quoted as saying on Friday that its online banking services were hit by a denial of services attack on the heels of Wednesday’s hacking on OP-Pohjola, another Finnish financial services group. Nordea said that its online banking system has suffered a denial of services attack, which started on Friday morning. As a result, the services have worked much slowly than usual. In addition, Fixing the problem and additional security measures might cause service interruption. According to the bank, the attack has not affected the use of its credit or debit cards or other services. Marko Mettenranta, spokesperson of Nordea, told Finnish national broadcaster YLE that the bank has contacted the police about the attack and measures are underway to fix the problem. Denial of service attacks essentially makes an online resource or service unavailable for its intended users. The National Bureau of Investigation of Finland is investigating OP-Pohjola’s case, saying that the attacks came from both Finland and abroad. Source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/business/04-Jan-2015/nordea-bank-s-online-services-hit-by-hackers

DDoS attack on 4Chan by Lizard Squad’s DDoS Rent-A-Tool Lizard Stresser

Lizard Squad’s rent-a-tool Lizard Stresser in action against 4Chan. The infamous band of hackers, Lizard Squad, which brought down the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live servers through Christmas with DDoS attack, are in the news again. This time the target is 4Chan.org, the popular image boarding website and tool used is the DDoS on rent, Lizard Stresser. 4Chan has been brought down by Lizard Stresser through a DDoS attack and still offline. Tweets from Lizard Squad indicate that the someone has rented the Lizard Squad’s rent-a-tool for DDoS to attack 4Chan website. Lizard Squad allegedly used a 1200 GB/s DDoS attack against PSN and XBL networks and is offering double the size of attacks on rent. At present details are sketchy and it is not known who has rented the Lizard Stresser to bring down the 4Chan website. Apparently Lizard Stresser was taken offline two days ago after somebody doxed the userids on the server. The website hosting Lizard Stresser now serves a different login page The Lizard Stresser offers individuals a way to take down IP addresses without having to know anything about hacking or DDoS attacks and is available in multiple subscription packages which range from $5.99 / €4.93 for a 100-second attack to $129.99 / €107 for an eight and a half hour long denial of service incident. The Lizard Squad also offers lifetime packs, prices for which can go upto $500 / €411. The lifetime packs are valid for five years as per Lizard Stresser website. 4Chan renters seem to have opted for the 8 hours pack from the looks of it but there is no official confirmation from either the Lizard Squad or 4Chan regarding the attack except for the tweet above(now deleted*). For the time being, the 4Chan website is inaccessible and will stay this way probably until the attack ends or 4Chan admin devise some method to manage to protect themselves against it. Considering that Lizard Squad brought down the networks of bigger and better Sony and Microsoft, 4Chan admin have a hard task cut out for them. There is also a outside chance that the 4Chan may be really down for maintenance , but that is difficult to imagine as Lizard Squad are known to be vocal about their exploits. There were reports of 4Chan admins announcing a while ago that there will be some downtime due to server maintenance, so it might come back online very soon. We will be updating the story as soon as we get any feedback/confirmation from either Lizard Squad or 4Chan. Lizard Squad has also deleted the above tweet about renting the Lizard Stresser just moments ago and the 4Chan website home is still showing some broken images. Source: http://www.techworm.net/2015/01/4chan-ddosed-lizard-squads-ddos-rent-tool-lizard-stresser.html

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DDoS attack on 4Chan by Lizard Squad’s DDoS Rent-A-Tool Lizard Stresser

Lizard Squad Member Arrested in the UK

Police primarily interested in suspect PayPal activity but also searching for links to DDoS attacks. While the FBI has confirmed that it is investigating Lizard Squad following the group’s PlayStation Network and Xbox Live DDoS attacks over Christmas, the first arrest has been made by British police. The South East Regional Organized Crime Unit (SEROCU) in the UK announced the arrest of a member of cyberattack group Lizard Squad in a press release. The English law-enforcement agency has placed 22-year-old Vinnie Omari in custody, and according to documents obtained by journalist Brian Kerbs, Omari identified as a member of Lizard Squad. The warrent issued to Omari made clear that the police were primarily concerned about suspicious activity related to stolen PayPal accounts which occured well before the PSN and XBL attacks. “The South East Regional Organised Crime Unit has arrested a 22-year-old man from Twickenham on suspicion of fraud by false representation and Computer Misuse Act offences,” the press release reads. “The arrest yesterday is in connection with an ongoing investigation in to cyber fraud offences which took place between 2013 and August 2014 during which victims reported funds being stolen from their PayPal accounts.” In an email to The Daily Dot, Omari said police were looking for anything to connect him to the DDoS strikes, and confiscated his laptops, Xbox One, phone, and USB memory drives. Source: http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/25873/article/lizard-squad-member-arrested-in-the-uk/

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Lizard Squad Member Arrested in the UK

Alibaba : Cloud Suffered DDoS Attack for 14 Hours

A well-known game company on Alibaba Cloud Computing suffered a DDoS attack for 14 hours from December 20 to 21. However, Alibaba has not disclosed the name of the game company and why the company was attacked. Alibaba condemned the hacking attack and called on all Internet innovation companies to jointly resist hacking. Alibaba Cloud said in the microblogging “faced with hacker attacks, we cloud never compromise.” Source: http://www.4-traders.com/ALIBABA-GROUP-HOLDING-LTD-17916677/news/Alibaba–Cloud-Suffered-DDoS-Attack-for-14-Hours-19594653/

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Alibaba : Cloud Suffered DDoS Attack for 14 Hours

50% of companies unprepared for DDoS attacks

Research carried out by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International has revealed that only 50% of companies regard countermeasures against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks as an important component of IT security. It means that the other 50% of companies may prove to be unprepared for a sudden attack, which could damage both their finances and their reputation as a result of the unavailability of internet services. Different industries have different views on how important it is to protect against DDoS attacks. For example, 60% of financial institutions, energy companies and utility services are conscious of the need of protection against DDoS attacks. This is the highest percentage of any industry. But it seems quite low considering that IT continuity is critical for these structures as they affect the well-being of many people. There is also a noticeable difference of opinion among different sized organizations: only 38% of small businesses consider protection against DDoS attacks an important component of IT security,but for big companies this figure reaches 60%. In recent years, DDoS attacks have become a common tool for cybercriminals and their clients. There are many different reasons for organizing these attacks — hooliganism, dishonest competition, blackmail. Currently the price to order a large-scale attack starts from just $50. Each year brings increasing numbers of DDoS attack schemes, so IT professionals at any company need to consider ways of protecting against them. According to the research, 23% of companies include maintaining the continuity of business processes in the top 3 most important tasks of their IT services. Interestingly the survey found no clear correlation between the level of threat faced in reality and the recognition of the need for DDoS protection. For instance, the sectors with public facing online services most affected by these incidents included IT companies (49%), e-commerce (44%), telecom (44%) and the media (42%). At the same time, countermeasures against DDoS were named as important by 53% of telecoms companies, 50% of IT businesses and only 41% of e-commerce and 38% of media companies. Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/50-of-companies-unprepared-for-DDoS-attacks-Report/articleshow/45575197.cms

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50% of companies unprepared for DDoS attacks

US Officials Believe North Korea Was Involved In Sony Hacks

U.S. officials say they believe that North Korea’s government was involved in the large-scale hack of Sony servers, which led to the leak of troves of Sony data from emails to unreleased projects, according to the NYT. Federal cyber-security sources say that there is evidence indicating that the hack was routed through computers in Singapore, Thailand, Italy, Bolivia and Cyprus, ABC reports. While the hack resulted in a dump of Sony data, including email, confidential materials, and unreleased projects, it also specifically targeted The Interview , a movie featuring Seth Rogen and James Franco. The theory that North Korea was behind the attack was initially dismissed when North Korea publicly denied involvement, but official sources believe that the North Korean government was “centrally involved” in the attacks. The New York Times reports that officials aren’t going on the record, and are unsure whether or not the White House will publicly accuse Kim Jong Un and North Korea of the attack. The hackers’ methodology is highly reminiscent of tactics used by Anonymous — timed dumps of sensitive data, DDOS attacks, etc. — which have thus far clouded the investigation. The Interview , which depicts the assassination attempt of Kim Jong Un, was slotted to be released on Christmas Day until Sony was forced to pull the movie. Amid 9/11-referencing threats from the hacker organization, which called itself the Guardians of Peace, five of the major theater chains said they would not show the film, leading Sony to pull back entirely. Source: http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/17/us-officials-believe-north-korea-was-involved-in-sony-hacks/

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US Officials Believe North Korea Was Involved In Sony Hacks

Finest Squad to bring DDoS services down

The Finest Squad is set out to bring cyber criminals to justice around the world; their main plan at the moment is to bring DDoS services down. When you visit the @FinestSquad Twitter account they are going all out with their tweets, you can clearly see they want the world to see they brought the Lizard Squad crew to their knees with its pinned tweet. Lizard Squad has been removed from twitter thanks to the Finest Squad, and then they say in their tweet, “Your welcome fellow gamers. We will make sure their IRC stays offline.” The next few steps for the Finest Squad include taking down / offline as many DDoS services, these include hosting, offshore, hosting, web booters and more. They have also announced on its Twitter account they are setting up a new YouTube channel, a news bulletin and a community forum – these are being developed right now so stay tuned. They also want to stack up its team; they basically want more of the finest. They do stress no illegal activities allowed, are you interested. This new role comes after they hired a professional full-time web designer/developer and web site security specialist. Looks like the Finest Squad is here to help all the gamers out there, PlayStation and Xbox gamers will be thrilled to bits Lizard Squad has had the Finest treatment. They do not like these kids harassing people and that is why they are there to bring justice. So far the Finest Squad website lists the LizardSquad member Obnoxious being arrested, @LizardPatrol, @LizardSquad and many more being removed from Twitter. All these wrong doings are being hunted, such as the EZTV proxy site being shutdown – read more here. Are you happy with what the Finest Squad have done so far? Source: http://www.onlinesocialmedia.net/20141217/finest-squad-to-bring-ddos-services-down/

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Finest Squad to bring DDoS services down

DDoS Attacks Hit Equity Poker Network Full Flush Poker

A rash of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that have been plaguing the online poker industry as of late have also included the Equity Poker Network (EPN). Following the cancellation of the “Winning Millions” tournament at the Winning Poker Network (WPN) on Sunday due to DDoS attacks, as well as similar actions by hackers that caused both WPN and the Merge Gaming Network to be shutdown on Tuesday, EPN and flagship skin Full Flush Poker issued press releases confirming that the network has also been under fire from computer miscreants. The DDOS attacks at EPN have occurred intermittently across the past six weeks, causing some short-term disruptions to Network connectivity, and frustrating poker room outages,” stated the EPN press release. Players at EPN have been subjected to disconnections that typically last no longer than 60 seconds. While that amount of time is relatively short, it certainly is long enough to seriously affect tournament play, as well as action on the cash tables. Network in Motion to Fight Hackers Full Flush informed that the DDoS incidents were small in number and that customer support was able to satisfy player concerns over the issues “quickly and efficiently.” EPN pointed out that account information of players “remains uncompromised,” and that efforts have been made to combat the actions by the hackers. We are working behind the scenes to strengthen the Network mechanisms and structures necessary to deal with such assaults on our operations, and we hope to reach a solution shortly that will fix the outages our Network’s Operators and their players have had to endure during recent times,” an EPN spokesperson said. The DDoS attacks have been quite troubling and come at a time when many sites throughout the online poker industry have undertaken steps to attract more recreational players to the tables. The negative press that comes from such attacks may cause some of those players to turn their backs on Internet poker, as trust and security are of utmost importance. We apologize to you, our players, for these recent disconnections caused by nefarious outside sources,” said an FFP representative. “We understand how frustrating this has been for our players, but we ask that if you experience a disconnect to be patient, wait 30-60 seconds for our mitigation devices to kick in, and the service will be restored as normal.” Source: http://www.pokerupdate.com/news/networks-and-rooms/12171-ddos-attacks-hit-equity-poker-network/

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DDoS Attacks Hit Equity Poker Network Full Flush Poker

Winning Poker Network $1M Guaranteed Tournament Cancelled After Apparent DDoS Attack

The Winning Poker Network (WPN) was forced to cancel its $1 million guaranteed prize pool tournament on Sunday, after an apparent distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack caused disruptions and connectivity issues for players participating in the event. While the tournament had been running for several hours, late registration was still open, so all players were refunded their buy-ins and entry fees in accordance with network policy. The tournament was an ambitious effort by WPN, a network that includes America’s Cardroom, to bring a major online poker tournament to US players. It was billed as the first $1 million event in American online poker in nearly four years, as the events of Black Friday had more or less put an end to such prize pools in the country. Cancelled Despite Strong Turnout With a $500 + $40 buy-in and entry fee, the tournament needed 2,000 players to meet the prize guarantee (without dipping into the entry fees), and it appeared likely to do so. When the tournament was finally cancelled, 1,937 players had registered, and there were still about 45 minutes left in the late registration period. According to reports, the event was cancelled after less than five hours of play, though some players have said closer to 5.5 hours had elapsed by the time it was officially cancelled. Given how long the tournament had been running, a substantial number of players had already been eliminated; on the TwoPlusTwo.com forums, some players said they had hoped for some sort of chip split or ICM chop among the remaining players, given the large stacks they had accumulated in the first few hours of play. CEO Addresses Issues, Defends Decisions After the tournament, WPN CEO Phil Payton streamed a broadcast live on Twitch.tv to address the cancellation. “Call it a conspiracy, call it what you want, a lot of online poker sites have had Internet connectivity issues,” a clearly disappointed and frustrated Payton said. Payton referenced the fact that tournament issues were caused by DDoS attacks last weekend, but had seemed to clear up in the days before the big event. Whoever was causing the Internet disconnections was waiting for the million,” Payton said. “The second that it started, it started.” According to Payton, he and his staff initially tried to fight through it, but eventually came to the conclusion that it simply wasn’t fair to players who might be disconnected during key hands. “There’s a lot of sites that [would say] let them push through it, and we make $80,000, and gg,” Payton said. “Well, you know what, I’ve got to sleep with myself at night, and I’m not going to do that. “If it happened again tomorrow, I’d do the same thing,” he added. As Payton referenced, there have been an increasing number of DDoS attacks across online poker and the Internet at large. Just days earlier, players were suspicious about the possibility of DDoS attacks being used to disconnect opponents for the benefit of a specific player. Swedish operator Svenska Spel also had to cancel some poker tournaments last month following similar attacks and a massive Internet collapse in Sweden just last week is also blamed on DDoS hackers. In the end, given that the issues gave some players an advantage, Payton said that he was happy to stand by his decision, even if it was unpopular. “It doesn’t matter if you like it or not,” Payton said in response to questions about the decision at the end of his broadcast on Twitch. “It was fair.” Source: http://www.cardschat.com/news/wpn-1m-tournament-cxld-ddos-attack-8827

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Winning Poker Network $1M Guaranteed Tournament Cancelled After Apparent DDoS Attack