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Distributed Denial of Service ‘DDoS’ Attacks From Anonymous Cost PayPal £3.5 Million of Damage

The distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) from hacktivist Anonymous has cost PayPal more than €4.3 million . The attack which was named Operation Payback were initially aimed at companies that opposed internet piracy, but switched to companies like Mastercard, Visa and PayPal after they refused to process payments to WikiLeaks . After that attack PayPal -the global leader in online money transfer and payments has paid around £3.5 million defend and arm itself against such kind distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. In a report BBC said that more than one hundred skilled employees from eBay, PayPal’s parent company, spent almost three weeks working on DDoS-attack-related issues and that PayPal had bought software and hardware to defend itself against further attacks. In all, the total cost of this work came to £3.5 million. This details have been revealed in a court case at Southwark Crown Court where a defendant, Christopher Weatherhead (studying at Northampton University when who allegedly took part in the campaign), is facing charges of conspiring to impair the operation of computers. He has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to impair the operation of computers between 1 August 2010 and 22 January 2011. Sandip Patel , prosecuting, said the group caused PayPal “enormous economic harm” . Mr Patel said they used distributed denial of service, or DDoS, which flooded the targets computers with enormous amounts of online requests. Target websites would crash and users would be directed to a page displaying the message: “You’ve tried to bite the Anonymous hand. You angered the hive and now you are being stung.” Mr Patel said: “This case, simply put, is about hackers who used the internet to attack and disable computer systems – colloquially described as cyber-attackers or vandals.” He said Mr Weatherhead, who used the online name Nerdo, posted plans on an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel encouraging an attack on PayPal. He said PayPal was the victim of a series of attacks “which caused considerable damage to its reputation and loss of trade”. Source: http://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2012/11/DDoS-Attack-From-Anonymous-Cost-PayPal-3.5-Million.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=identica

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Distributed Denial of Service ‘DDoS’ Attacks From Anonymous Cost PayPal £3.5 Million of Damage

The New Wave of Distributed Denial of Service ‘DDoS’ attacks: How to Prepare and Respond

What will you do if your organization is the next target of a distributed denial of service attack? Hacktivists recently launched DDoS attacks that caused online outages at several major U.S. banks. Each institution was warned in advance; none were able to prevent disruptions. And while banks are the current targets, any organization could be next. Join this panel for expert insight on: Why these recent DDoS attacks elude traditional defenses; New security solutions to help detect and respond to DDoS attacks; How to respond if you are attacked – from ramping up fraud prevention in other channels to what to tell customers about the attacks. Background Beginning in mid-September, hacktivists initiated a series of sophisticated DDoS attacks against major U.S. banks, including Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo. The attackers claim to be waging a cyber war against top-tier banking institutions because of outrage over a YouTube movie trailer believed by the hacktivists to be anti-Islam. In each instance, the group has given at least 24 hours notice before launching the DDoS attacks. But no institution so far has successfully avoided online outages resulting from the attacks. These incidents send two clear messages to security leaders: The sophistication and strength of the DDoS attacks are greater than organizations have seen before. One industry expert measured the DDoS traffic flow at one institution to be 65 gigabytes per second – roughly 65 times heavier than previous DDoS attacks. Any organization is susceptible. Banks are today’s DDoS target, but tomorrow it could be a government agency, merchant or healthcare entity that offends a hacktivist group with the resources to launch an attack. If banks, with their mature security programs and state-of-the-art defenses, cannot ward off these attacks, then what other organization can? In this panel webinar, industry leaders with expertise in DDoS defense will present the unique qualities of these latest attacks, why no organization should feel immune, then discuss successful solutions that can empower organizations to detect, prevent and respond to attacks. Leading the discussion is Matthew Speare, SVP of IT at M&T Bancorp. He will set the stage by discussing how his institution responded to the attacks against other banks, including preparation, security controls and customer communication strategies. Speare then will be joined by thought-leaders from Akamai, Fortinet and Neustar, who will discuss a range of DDoS-related topics, including: Sophistication of Attacks – In the past, DDoS meant brute-force network attacks. Now, experts say, they are not only stronger, but also morphing into application layer attack, which makes them harder to detect and block. What have we learned from these attacks, and which new solutions are best for identifying and rerouting the DDoS traffic? A Cover for Fraud? – Sometimes DDoS attacks are meant as a distraction – to keep security personnel focused online while the fraudsters turn to other channels, such as the call center, to commit fraud. What are the account anomalies you need to be equipped to detect? Incident Response – Not only does your organization need to be prepared to respond internally to DDoS attacks, but you also need to know how to communicate externally to customers. What’s your message, and how can you take this opportunity to better explain your security posture? Source: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/webinars/new-wave-ddos-attacks-how-to-prepare-respond-w-308

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The New Wave of Distributed Denial of Service ‘DDoS’ attacks: How to Prepare and Respond

What to Do About Distributed Denial of Service ‘DDoS’ attack

Leaders at four security technology companies say the distributed-denial-of-service attacks that have hit 10 U.S. banks in recent weeks highlight the need for new approaches to preventing and responding to online outages. “Attackers have broadened their toolkits, and DDoS is a not just a blunt instrument anymore,” says Jason Malo , a fraud analyst CEB TowerGroup and former DDoS-prevention expert for domain-naming-system registry operator VeriSign. These experts advise banking institutions to: Use appropriate technology, including cloud-based Web servers, which can handle overflow, when high volumes of Web traffic strike; Assess ongoing DDoS risks, such as through tests that mimic real-world attacks; Implement online outage mitigation and response strategies before attacks hit; Train staff to recognize the signs of a DDoS attack. During a DDoS attack, a website is flooded with what security experts often call “junk” traffic – a saturation of requests that overwhelm the site’s servers, preventing them from being able to respond to legitimate traffic. In essence, DDoS attacks take websites down because the servers can’t handle the traffic. Security experts interviewed for this story say most banks have failed to address this vulnerability to high volumes of traffic. DDoS: Banks on Alert Starting in mid-September, DDoS attacks have resulted in online outages at 10 major U.S. banks . The hacktivist group Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has taken credit for the hits, saying the attacks are motivated by outrage related to a YouTube movie trailer deemed offensive to Muslims. But security experts say DDoS attacks are often used as tools of distraction to mask fraud in the background (see DDoS Attacks: First Signs of Fraud? ). To reduce their risk of DDoS takedown, experts say banks need to address three key areas: Layered user authentication at login, which consumes bandwidth; Reliance on Internet service providers not equipped to handle extreme bandwidth demands; and The internal management of Web servers, which limits banks’ ability to hand off traffic overflow when volumes are excessive. Expert Advice Fraud should always be an institution’s top concern, meaning addressing DDoS threats should be a priority, experts say. “DDoS protections have quickly become a new industry best practice,” Malo says. But DDoS attacks pose unique challenges for banks and credit unions. The additional layers of security institutions already implement, such as enhanced user authentication, transaction verification and device identification , demand more bandwidth. So when a bank is hit by a DDoS attack, bandwidth is strained more than it would be at a non-banking e-commerce site, says Mike Smith, a senior security evangelist at Akamai Technologies, which specializes in Internet traffic monitoring and cloud-based DDoS protections (see New Bank Attacks Expected Today? ). So what protections make sense? BankInfoSecurity asked security vendors VeriSign, Prolexic, Cisco and Akamai Technologies for their top recommendations. They all stressed that no one-size-fits-all approach to thwarting attacks exists. Nevertheless, they identified several best practices. Use Appropriate Technology When it comes to selecting the right technologies to minimize DDoS-related outages, vendors advise: Rely on the cloud. No internal server could be expected to handle the amount of traffic these recent DDoS attacks have pushed. Akamai’s Smith says the average amount of traffic coming in during some of those individual attacks equaled about 65 gigabytes per second. “Even at the height of the Anonymous attacks, we saw traffic coming in from 7,000 or 8,000 people [at approximately 1 gigabyte per second],” he says. By relying on cloud-based servers and systems, banks can expand their bandwidth. “It’s never a good idea to manage everything internally,” says Joe Dallatore, senior manager of the Cisco Security & Research Information Group, which specializes in security threat monitoring and online event tracking. Working with a cloud vendor also can help institutions more readily identify a DNS-server attack or other DDoS attack, Dallatore says. Using DNS providers with the capacity to absorb an attack makes sense, because when DNS fails, all other services fail, says Akamai’s Smith. “This is why almost all the large banks use a DNS provider in some capacity, and it’s a proactive defense that is always turned on by default,” he adds. Use virtual private networks. VPNs indirectly improve DDoS protections, says Matt Wilson, who oversees strategic technologies at VeriSign. Attackers target publicly available sites because they are public. But a VPN cannot protect an entire infrastructure. For complete protection, banks and businesses must continue to rely on other technologies for firewall management as well as server and router maintenance, he says. A better solution, Akamai’s Smith suggests, is VPN over MPLS [multiprotocol label switching] for critical or business-to-business functions. Apply challenge-and-response. Malo says banks should encourage vendors to develop DDoS protections that “challenge” traffic. These protections, he says, could mirror challenge-and-response options, such as CAPTCHA images, used for online banking. A CAPTCHA image uses distorted letters or numbers that an online user is required to enter at login to help affirm authenticity. “DDoS mitigation is not just about finding a signature and putting mechanisms in to filter or block traffic,” Malo says. “Mitigation also includes introducing challenge-response.” Challenge-and-response options would help banking institutions differentiate legitimate traffic from so-called junk traffic often associated with DDoS attacks, he adds. But Akamai’s Smith warns that challenge-and-response during a large DDoS attack could be dangerous, since challenge-and-response takes one request and turns it into four. “This does not scale, and it sets you up for additional points of failure.” he says. For smaller attacks, challenge-and-response can be effective, however, “where we are worried about denying legitimate users because of mega-proxies, corporate Internet access points,” Smith says. Don’t rely on intrusion detection. Intrusion prevention and detection systems can be effective at picking up on anomalous traffic or behavior associated with a DDoS attack, CEB TowerGroup’s Malo says. But that’s not what those systems were primarily designed to do. While leaning on those systems can help DDoS detection, and in some cases help institutions thwart online outages, redirecting IPS and IDS can create new vulnerabilities. “When protection systems are redirected, banking institutions inadvertently create new vulnerabilities,” he says, because other defenses are weakened. Scrub. Traffic scrubbing, which clears suspected botnets and junk traffic at the ISP, can be effective, Cisco’s Dallatore says. The more bad traffic an institution can block at the outset, the better its chances of limiting an outage. Assess DDoS Risks Vendors stress that regularly assessing DDoS risks, such as through tests that mimic real-world attacks, is essential. “Run periodic table-top exercises to model how an attack could hit and then test the accompanying remediation strategies you’ve put in place,” says Stuart Scholly, president of Prolexic, which specializes in cloud-based services for website restoration after a DDoS attack. To set the stage for remediation plans and testing, vendors recommend banking institutions first: Know typical traffic patterns. To better assess risk, financial institutions must carefully determine what typical site traffic looks like, Malo says. That way, when a DDoS attack hits, atypical traffic patterns are more obvious. Understand the infrastructure. Understand the Web applications, online bandwidth limits and any infrastructure elements that could affect site capacity. Akamai’s Smith says network segmentation can limit the impact an attack has on other services inside the same infrastructure. “At a minimum, critical sites should be provisioned onto their own, dedicated network circuits and border devices to limit the impact of both an attack against them and from attacks against other services in the same data center,” he says. “Brochureware sites,” consumer transactional sites and business sites are good candidates to break out into their own infrastructure, Smith says, while redirect, typo and marketing-campaign sites can be run from shared infrastructure. Mitigation and Response DDoS mitigation strategies and response plans should be included in disaster recovery and business continuity strategies, Prolexic’s Scholly says. Those strategies also must include definitive communication and action plans, Cisco’s Dallatore says. Communicating with employees and the public soon after a DDoS attack is critical for reputational preservation. “You want to be sure operational people, for instance, can reach the decision makers or have the authority to make decisions when a site goes down,” Dallatore says. During the recent wave of attacks, banks’ communication with the public varied. Some institutions acknowledged their sites went down because of DDoS attacks, while others only said their sites experienced intermittent outages. Greg Nowak of the Information Security Forum says most institutions have been too quiet – fueling the public’s fears about the outages. “They seem to be regarding it as a secret,” Nowak says. “[The banks] should be taking the opportunity to explain to their customers the difference between a denial-of-service attack and some sort of hacking attack that actually puts information at risk.” Provide Training Training staff to recognize the signs of an attack is essential, vendors advise. Bank and credit union employees must understand what DDoS attack traffic patterns look like, says Prolexic’s Scholly. Front-line staff members also need to know how to respond if they start getting calls about a site being down. BITS , the technology division of the Financial Services Roundtable, says banks and credit unions need to clearly communicate with customers and members that their financial information and accounts are secure. Among BITS recommendations: Explain that attacks have not resulted in unauthorized access to customer information; Reiterate to consumers that banking institutions use sophisticated online security strategies to protect customer accounts; Let consumers know that institutions continue to invest in technology to defend against potential attacks. “We want the public to know that institutions are taking steps to address these attacks – with ISPs and other security providers – and there is a fair amount of collaboration going on with regulators and the Department of Homeland Security about the threats and how to address them,” says John Carlson, executive vice president of BITS. “You can’t underestimate the importance of training, and the role it plays in your business continuity planning,” Scholly says. “When you are prepared, it makes a world of difference.” Source: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/what-to-do-about-ddos-attacks-a-5271/p-3

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What to Do About Distributed Denial of Service ‘DDoS’ attack

Man arrested for Distributed Denial of Service ‘DDoS’ attack on Theresa May

A MAN HAS BEEN ARRESTED on suspicion of launching and promoting a denial of service attack on the website of UK Home Secretary Theresa May. The man is unnamed, but is said to be 41 years old and from Stoke on Trent, He is accused of mounting an attack on May’s website and others, and of inciting other people to participate. “The activity this morning demonstrates the commitment of the PCeU (Police Central e-Crime Unit) and our colleagues to combat cyber criminality anywhere within the UK and take action against those responsible,” said detective inspector Jason Tunn of the Metropolitan Police. “Assisting and encouraging cyber crime is a serious matter and I would advise all persons to consider their actions and any possible future consequences prior to posting any material online.” May’s website was attacked earlier this year as part of Operation Trial At Home, an Anonymous backed effort to raise awareness about ongoing extradition controversies, including those affecting Richard O’Dwyer and Gary McKinnon. Optrial At Home, as it was called on Twitter, was announced by an account called AnonopUK. “#OpTrialAtHome We will be firing our Laz0rs at GCHQ.gov.uk 8pm GMT 14th April, We invite all #Anons again to join,” it said in a tweeted message that has now apparently been deleted. That account was still sending out messages late last night. Whoever was arrested was nicked on suspicion of assisting or encouraging crime contrary to the Serious Crime Act 2007. The man has been bailed until mid-December. Source: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2222942/man-arrested-for-denial-of-service-attack-on-theresa-may

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Man arrested for Distributed Denial of Service ‘DDoS’ attack on Theresa May

Defending Against The Next Generation Distributed Denial of Service DDoS Attacks

Here is a great post from Joey Muniz at www.thesecurityblogger.com Press around the DDoS attack Operation Ababil has caught the attention of many of our customers. This sophisticated cyber strike used a combination of three separate rootkits targeting webservers, which produced a very high upstream attack method on multiple companies simultaneously. The scary part about Operation Ababil was it was designed to bypass standard DDoS defense methods. This clearly demonstrates there isn’t a silver bullet for addressing advanced DDoS attacks. Distributed Denial of Service DDoS, web application and DNS infrastructure attacks represent some of the most critical threats to enterprises today. Here is some suggestions for a reference architecture to defend against these an other advanced threats. The best approach for defending against advanced DDoS as well as other cyber attacks is having multiple security solutions using different methods to detect malicious activity for both internal and external threats. For internal threats, it’s critical to have a well-designed and mature security infrastructure that includes components such as firewalls, IPS/IDS, email and content / application security solutions. Similar security standards need to be applied to endpoints as well as in the datacenter such as proper patch management, anti-virus and anti-malware. It’s important to enable DDoS defense features for these tools. For example, some best practices are leveraging ACLs for ingress and egress filtering, rate limiting ICMP and SYN packets as well as verifying if the source IP of packets have a route from where they arrived. Standard internal security solutions are important however will not completely protect you from advanced DDoS and other cyber threats. Security administrators need full network visibility to quickly identify anomalies regardless of their location or form of communication. Best practice to identify malicious activity inside your network is monitoring the wire using a Netflow or Packet capture approach (more can be found HERE and HERE). It’s also important to match identity to devices found. An example is how Cisco offers integration with its flagship access control solution, Identity Services Engine ISE, to network forensic tools such as LanCope, NetWitness and most major SIEMs. Having a tuned monitoring solution will dramatically improve reaction time to internal cyber threats. Most administrators associate DDoS as an outsider attack. We hear customers claim their service provider is responsible for providing DDoS defense however a service providers mission of delivering service will always outweigh concerns for security. For this reason, it’s critical to invest in an external DDoS defense solution as well as verify what security tools are included with your service provider contract. The two large players for external DDoS defense are Akamai and Arbor networks. Akamai’s Kona Site Defender provides DDoS mitigation and Application Layer Protection for most service providers. If your service provider uses Akamai, verify if they invested in the additional Kona suite. The leader for enterprise DDoS defense is Arbor (more can be found HERE). Arbor’s Peakflow, Prevail and cloud subscription services are the defacto standard for DDoS defense at the vast majority of our Tier-1 and Tier 2 ISPs as well as enterprise customers. Online DDoS monitoring services are also an option offered by companies such as Prolexic which are an alternative to purchasing equipment. To summarize the DDoS defense architecture, an enterprise should focus on both internal and external defense. The internal network should have a solid security foundation, monitor the wire for devices that access the network and match identity to those devices to distinguish what is permitted from rouge devices. Investments should be made in external defenses that offer the ability deflect DDoS traffic such as SYN Floods or UDP Floods as well as authenticating valid traffic at the network edge. Best practice is using DDoS solutions that leverage a large customer base via cloud services to improve reaction time as a community. Its also wise to question your service provider for what security solutions are included with your service package. Having this blend of internal and external security solutions will dramatically improve your chances against todays advanced persistent threats such as Operation Ababil. For DDoS protection for your eCommerce site click here to learn more. Source: http://www.cloudcentrics.com/?p=2293

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Defending Against The Next Generation Distributed Denial of Service DDoS Attacks

Distributed Denial of Service ‘DDoS’ attack and SQL injection are the most popular attack subjects

An analysis of conversations in one of the largest known hacker forums – with around 250,000 members – has revealed that SQL-injection and DDoS are the subjects of most interest to up-and-coming wannabe hackers. In its analysis of the forum (together with 17 other, smaller forums) to be published today, Imperva notes that this “is not a hardcore crime site, but it’s not entirely softcore. New hackers come to this site to learn and, on the other hand, more experienced hackers teach to gain ‘street cred’ and recognition… Typically, once hackers have gained enough of a reputation, they go to a more hardcore, invitation-only forum.” The real value of the analysis is that it shows what tomorrow’s hackers are learning today. “By examining what information hackers seek out or share in these forums, we can better understand where they are focusing their efforts,” explained Amichai Shulman, Imperva’s CTO. It seems that DDoS and SQL injection attacks are the current focus. Each tied at 19% of all discussed attack methodologies. DDoS is rarely out of the news, with hacktivists using it to make political protests, criminals using it to disguise other attacks, and (potentially) nation states using it to disrupt critical infrastructures. The recent spate of attacks against American banks is thought by many to be a politically-inspired attack by Iranian attackers. SQL injection attacks have a slightly lower profile but are similarly popular with criminals – and the same US banks have recently been warned about Havij, an automated SQL injection attack tool (itself a common subject of discussion in the chat forums). Such attacks can be mitigated (and Imperva has discussed this in an earlier blog this month). Nevertheless, the company believes that only 5% of industry’s current security budget is spent on defeating this type of attack; which may help explain why it is so popular. Other subjects disclosed by the Imperva analysis include the growing black market for social media endorsements, especially likes on Facebook and followers on Twitter. Since the social media sites are becoming better at recognizing and excluding automated bots that accrue such ‘currency’, the underground is providing it as a service, with numerous advertisements for buying or selling “illegitimate social network likes, followers, and endorsements” appearing on the forums. But there are also many discussion threads, says Imperva, that include “requests to hack someone’s Facebook profile, usually to settle personal matters. Common examples are spying on one’s girlfriend/ex, taking revenge, and just for lulz.” E-whoring has also become rampant. “With more than 13,000 threads in the dedicated forum we monitor, e-whoring is surely becoming one of the most common methods for beginner cyber criminals to gain easy money.” It’s basically social engineering where an attacker of either sex pretends to be a ‘hot gal with pics’. Dj Co2 posted an explanation on Black Hat World last month: “So what you will be doing is making a girls profile, add some hot pictures and make it look real. You will then be sending messages to different guys (there’s no limit on that). You will then chat with them, make them a little horny and desperate and then get them to sign up through your affiliate link to some webcam site. Tell them that if they buy tokens they can have a private chat with you on the website… 20 Instagram accounts with profile picture for $10.” “The victim,” says Imperva, “is paying for the illusion of a brief relationship.” Men “would be better off getting to know the girl next door,” it suggests. For more information on SQL injection click here . Source: http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/29033/ddos-and-sql-injection-are-the-most-popular-attack-subjects

Cyber attacks on of which is Distributed Denial of Service ‘DDoS’ attack on Japanese sites

Tensions between Japan and China are mounting following the Noda government’s decision to buy and nationalize the Senkaku Islands, and the repercussions have spilled over into cyberspace. Japan must urgently address its cybersecurity vulnerabilities and prepare for cyberthreats. Vandalism in cyberspace quickly followed the Japanese government’s announcement. China’s largest “hacktivist” group, the Honker Union of China, denounced Tokyo’s nationalization of the Senkaku Islands, calling it a declaration of war, and listed more than 100 Japanese entities as targets of a malicious campaign. For two weeks, Japanese central and local governments, banks, universities and companies experienced cyber vandalism, including the defacing of websites and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. According to the National Police Agency, at least eight major Japanese websites were hit with cyber-vandalism and 11 more temporarily suffered access difficulties. Websites were altered to display Chinese flags and messages stating that the Senkaku Islands belong to China. Some of the cyberattacks used Chinese IP addresses and servers, but it remains unknown who the malicious actors are or who may be supporting them. Website defacement is a comparatively unsophisticated hacking technique that makes Japan’s vulnerability to more serious and latent cyberattacks a worrying concern. Tokyo must immediately strengthen cybersecurity to decrease the gravity and impact of these threats. Most security experts believe that the chances of the Senkaku Islands dispute erupting into a military conflict are slim, given the devastating economic and political impact such an event would have. But future conflicts will most certainly involve sophisticated cyberattacks. The precedent is already well established. Three weeks prior to the outbreak of the Russia-Georgia war of 2008, Georgian websites, including those belonging to the government, financial organizations, and the media, experienced DDoS attacks, defacement and infiltration by malware designed to disrupt communications and disable servers. If such an attack took place in connection to the Senkaku dispute, it would affect both Japan and the United States. Cyberattack and espionage techniques have rapidly developed over the last four years. Malicious actors may target critical infrastructures such as power grids as well as defense networks and satellite communications. Defensive abilities would be seriously disrupted if GPS and command and control systems become unreliable. It is extremely difficult to assure timely and accurate attribution for cyberattacks. The inability to immediately retaliate after an attack and the anonymity of aggression seriously undermine any possibility of deterrence. Moreover, international cooperation is not guaranteed even where responsibility is attributable, and even where malicious actors are identified, no adequate international law prescribes the appropriate response to cyberattacks either as countries or individuals. The Ministry of Defense recently released its first cybersecurity guideline for the use of cyberspace. This document declared that under the right of self defense, the ministry is responsible for countering cyberattacks if they are launched as part of armed attacks. This interpretation of the ministry’s mission constitutes a major expansion of its previous remit, given that previously it was responsible only for the protection of internal networks and computers. Nonetheless, the document does not specify what falls under the definition of “armed attacks” and this will be determined on a case-by-case basis. This vagueness provides flexibility to deal with cyberattacks, but may also cause confusion in the government and the international community about the justification and proportionality of responses. Moreover, uncertainty exists between Tokyo and Washington as to which cyberattacks are to be regarded as “armed” for the purposes of invoking the security treaty. As long as this lack of clarity persists, the only realistic option is for Japan to reinforce its cyber defense to detect any threat, prevent or resist cyberattacks, and rapidly recover from any damage that may be incurred. To do that, Japan will also need to study cyber offenses. Joint military exercises using cyber elements would be necessary as well. Although the aforementioned guideline refers to the necessity to continue to conduct such exercises, there is no bilateral declaration about cyber exercises in the public domain. At the press conference after the U.S.-South Korea 2 + 2 meeting this year, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta suggested conducting such joint exercises to make them “more realistic.” Even if governments cannot reveal the specifics of the exercises, a joint declaration demonstrating the strong will of Tokyo and Washington would increase deterrence. Another nightmare scenario for Japan would be the spread of disinformation about the Japanese territorial claim over the Senkakus before or during a crisis situation. This could be done by hacking broadcasters, social media and other online platforms to manipulate Japanese and international audiences. An example of this occurred in the ongoing Syrian civil war. News outlets were penetrated in order to disseminate false information about the Syrian opposition and bolster support for progovernment forces. The rapid growth of social and online media leverages the proliferation of disinformation as such information is disseminated by innocent users. For example, false information could belittle the authenticity of Japanese sovereignty over the Senkakus. Disinformation could convince people that nuclear disasters are being caused by physical or cyberattacks. In a worst case scenario for Japan and the U.S., cyberattacks could cause disruption slowly or quickly, precipitating cascading shock waves through their economic, political and security systems. To counter this threat, it is essential to enhance both the intelligence capability of the government and the level of cybersecurity nationwide. The government has to establish an information-warfare strategy to build resilience to likely scenarios. It is crucial to quickly identify when and what kind of disinformation is produced. Japan also must develop methods of emergency communication for distributing accurate information to minimize manipulation as much as possible. While these grave scenarios have yet to unfold in Japan, this does not mean they will not happen as cyberthreats spread and regional uncertainty deepens. Japan must develop its cybersecurity capability now as it can ill afford the costs of further delay. Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20121026a1.html

Could Cyber Attacks (Distributed Denial of Service ‘DDoS’ attack) Ruin Christmas for Retailers?

A string of cyber attacks on U.S. financial institutions has created headaches this fall by slowing down or preventing online banking access for millions of Americans. But imagine the real economic damage that similar-style attacks would cause if they struck U.S. retailers this holiday-shopping season, potentially eating into projected online sales of $54 billion. While retailers deserve credit for bolstering their defenses against credit-card-hungry organized crime rings, security professionals believe the industry is vulnerable to this different kind of onslaught aimed at crippling online sales. “The gloves are off in cyber space. The reality is if they want it to get worse, it can get worse,” said Dave Aitel, a former computer scientist at the National Security Agency. “I don’t think people are really prepared mentally to what happens if Amazon goes down.” Unlike the ongoing cyber attacks against U.S. banks, there doesn’t appear to be a specific cyber threat against retailers. Yet there are concerns that retailers aren’t ready for denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks from a powerful state actor like Iran, which many in the U.S. government suspect had a hand in the recent attacks on financial institutions like Bank of America (BAC) and J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM). “The Iranians are in the business of making a point and the bank attacks are not likely to have the impact they need, hence retailers are the next most likely target, especially in the holiday season,” said Aitel, CEO of Immunity, a cyber security firm that works with Fortune 500 companies. Online Sales Exceed $160B It’s hard to overstate the importance of e-commerce in today’s smartphone and social network dominated world. According to comScore (CSOR), annual U.S. retail e-commerce spending has surged 143% since 2004 to $161.52 billion last year. Despite the sluggish domestic economy and tepid retail sales growth, e-commerce spending jumped 13% between 2010 and 2011. Online shopping is crucial during the all-important holiday-shopping season. E-commerce spending rose 14% last holiday season to $37.2 billion, comScore said. In the face of continued economic uncertainty, online spending is projected to climb 17% this season to $54.47 billion, according to MarketLive. “It’s very important for any retailer to have a web presence or you risk being left out in the cold,” said Andrew Lipsman, vice president of industry analysis at comScore, who noted that even in-person purchases typically originate online. Adapting to Shifting Threat Security professionals believe retailers’ cyber defenses are more porous than those of financial institutions — and even some banks succumbed to relentless DDoS attacks this fall. Given their prior experience combating thieves in Russia and elsewhere trying to siphon funds or snatch credit-card numbers, retailers aren’t really positioned to halt massive DDoS attacks from powerful state actors like Iran. “That’s a very different threat and in many ways is more severe,” said Aitel. “They’re not thinking: What if it’s not about the money? What if someone wants to take me out just to take me out?” Cedric Leighton, a former NSA official, said he agrees that retailers are not as well prepared as their financial peers. “I don’t think they’ve gotten to the point where they can truly say their whole cyber supply chain is as well secured as they need to be in this day and age,” said Leighton, CEO of a Washington, D.C.-based risk-management consultancy. Leighton said hackers could also disrupt companies’ supply chains by messing with order quantities and locations, creating costly problems for retailers. Just this week Barnes & Noble (BKS) fell victim to a very sophisticated criminal attack that may have resulted in stolen credit and debit card information at 63 of its stores. Amazon Atop Target List The importance of a robust cyber defense is even more important for online retailers like Amazon.com and Overstock (OSTK). “If they aren’t available online, there is no business. They don’t exist,” said Ronen Kenig, director of security product marketing at Tel Aviv-based security firm Radware (RDWR). In a potential cyber attack on U.S. retailers, Amazon.com would clearly be the biggest prize. The Seattle company generated $17.4 billion in revenue last holiday quarter. “When you attack the United States you don’t attack Topeka, Kansas,” said Aitel. “Amazon is the big boy on the block. They are of course also the best protected.” Amazon.com and Wal-Mart (WMT) declined to comment for this story, while Target (TGT) didn’t respond to a request for comment. “Every company is going to look at what its exposure is. The greater the company is placed at risk, then the more they are going to invest in trying to protect themselves,” said Mallory Duncan, general counsel at the National Retail Federation. Noting that some companies “rely extremely heavily on the Internet,” Duncan said, “When you have a bet-the-company type of situation, they’re going to take extraordinary steps to protect that channel.” Cyber Monday in Focus Aitel suggested the days around Cyber Monday — the first work day after Black Friday — as a time when retailers need to be particularly vigilant about the cyber threat. According to comScore, U.S. e-commerce spending on Cyber Monday rose 22% last year to $1.25 billion, making it the highest online spending day in history. “The attackers always like to choose the worst time for the victim,” said Kenig. Bolstering Cyber Defenses So what specifically should retailers be doing to prevent or mitigate the impact of DDoS attacks this holiday season? Leighton said it’s crucial for companies to implement redundant systems with backups that allow switching from one system to the other when necessary. From a bigger picture standpoint, retailers should strive to install security programs that go above and beyond industry security standards, which Aitel said “are really the bottom bar.” Security professionals have been particularly alarmed by some recent cyber attacks that inflicted damage on physical assets, including a devastating attack unleashed on Saudi Arabia’s state run oil company Saudi Aramco Some believe Iran may have been behind this attack, which destroyed an estimated 30,000 computers. Aitel said, “Companies have to look at what happened to Saudi Aramco and say: What would we do if that happened to us? Until they have a good answer for that, they shouldn’t be sleeping that well.” For advanced DDoS protection against your eCommerce site click here . Source: http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2012/10/24/would-cyber-attacks-ruin-christmas-for-retailers/

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Could Cyber Attacks (Distributed Denial of Service ‘DDoS’ attack) Ruin Christmas for Retailers?

Use Cloud to Repel Distributed Denial of Service ‘DDoS’ attack

Employing cloud computing services could help organizations defend against the type of distributed denial of service attacks that have temporarily crippled the online service of major American banks, says NIST’s Matthew Scholl. By using cloud computing services, Scholl says in an interview with Information Security Media Group, enterprises no longer are completely dependent on their own physical infrastructure because they can add processing capabilities from the cloud to keep up with DDoS attacks. “You have an entire cloud infrastructure that you can spin up and provision to keep pace with the scale of the attack. And when the attack subsides, then you can drop an infrastructure back down again and just pay for that service that you needed when the attack occurs,” says Scholl, deputy chief of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s computer security division. “We’ve seen use of cloud and the elasticity and the dynamic nature of cloud technology to be something that is kind of changing the economics of a DDoS attack.” In the interview, Scholl explains: Why he believes the recent DDoS attacks against banks may not be as dire as they appear [see Bank Attacks: What Have We Learned? ]; How the migration to IPv6 could help organizations can defend against DDoS attacks; Types of guidance NIST offers that could help organizations develop plans to handle DDoS attacks. Scholl says DDoS attacks won’t vanish anytime soon, but believes a government-industry partnerships could help diminish the impact of these digital assaults. “That’s going to be the solution to try to both enable us to defend against it on the organizational side and remove the capability of it at the threat side,” he says. Source: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/interviews/nist-use-cloud-to-repel-ddos-attacks-i-1698

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Use Cloud to Repel Distributed Denial of Service ‘DDoS’ attack

HSBC Falls in Latest Bank DDoS Attacks, What’s Next?

Capital One, HSBC, Bank of America, Wells Fargo are among the near-dozen financial Websites hit by distributed denial-of-service attacks over the past few weeks. These attacks have disrupted daily operations for banks and made it difficult for customers to take advantage of online banking services. A group calling itself Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has claimed credits for most of the incidents and has named the institutions it will target a few days before launching the attacks. Even with the prior warning, Websites of some of the country’s largest firms have been affected: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, PNC, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Sun Trust, Regions Financial, Capital One, and BB&T. Capital One Bank was hit with two separate attacks, occurring on Oct. 9 and Oct. 16. HSBC was the latest one to be hit, as its Websites suffered online outages on Thursday. A different group, Fawkes Security, claimed credit, but it’s not clear at this point whether the HSBC incident was different from the attacks against other banks or not. “This denial of service attack did not affect any customer data, but did prevent customers using HSBC online services, including internet banking,” the bank said in a statement on its Website. What are DDoS Attacks? A group of computers send larger than usual volume of traffic data to Websites to tie up server resources. Websites can’t handle the high volume, either knocking it offline entirely or being available only sporadically. “You can picture a distributed denial-of-service attack as being something like 15 fat men trying to get through a revolving door at the same time. Nothing moves,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. Often in DDoS attacks, the computers used to bombard the targeted Websites with traffic have actually been hijacked. The computers are often infected with malware that give attackers control over the computer, usually without the owner’s knowledge. In these banking attacks, however, it appears that the perpetrators have hijacked servers instead of client machines, according to recent analysis by Radware. Difficult to Repel For banking customers, these DDoS attacks are just more annoying than damaging, While online systems have been intermittently unavailable, to date, it doesn’t appear that any customer or account information at any of the banks have been exposed because of the attacks. For financial institutions, they’ve been highly disruptive, as IT departments have to deal with significantly large attacks. “These are big, but we’ve seen this big before,” said Neal Quinn, chief operating officer of Prolexic, told Wired last week. “We’ve seen events this big in the past.” Even knowing that the attacks were coming, financial institutions have been unable to keep the attacks from knocking the sites offline. Each of the targeted banks experienced several hours of downtime, although Wells Fargo seemed to have weathered the crisis a little better than others. “I don’t want to minimize the potential damage it could cause to the industry,” Wells Fargo CFO Tim Sloan told Reuters, “But in terms of how the industry performed and how Wells Fargo performed in reaction to the recent efforts, we actually performed very well.” The bank will continue to invest in ways to defend against future DDoS attacks, according to Sloan, who called it as “a cost of doing business today.” Stay On Guard Even though each of the affected institutions have assured customers that no customer or account data has been compromised, security experts warn that it’s still too early to get complacent. DDoS attacks can often be a diversion so that IT teams don’t notice other malicious activity that may be happening at the same time. Gartner’s Avivah Litan told Government Info Security that she had anecdotal accounts of fraud slipping through banks’ overloaded call centers while the online channels are under attack. It wouldn’t be the first time DDoS attacks were used to distract overloaded administrators. Back in April 2011, Sony didn’t notice the attackers breaking into Sony servers to compromise over 100 million user accounts from the PlayStation Network, Sony Online Entertainment, and Qriocity music service because it was distracted by large-scale DDoS attacks overwhelming its servers, the company said in a letter to Congress. “We are assuming that the attackers are doing this to perpetrate fraud,” Mike Smith, a security evangelist with online security provider Akamai Technologies, told Bank Info Security . Smith was specifically referring to the fact that Capital One was targeted for a second time, which may mean that attackers are looking for different ways to try to compromise employees and get access to customer accounts. “That’s the assumption we are operating under at this point,” Smith said. Source: http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/none/304145-hsbc-falls-in-latest-bank-ddos-attacks-what-s-next

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HSBC Falls in Latest Bank DDoS Attacks, What’s Next?