Leading IT decision-makers in the Kingdom have indicated that distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are fast becoming a main security risk in for Saudi businesses. This was stated in a new survey released at a seminar in Riyadh on the cyber risks and business security in the Kingdom. The survey, commissioned by global Application Delivery Networking leader F5 Networks, and conducted by Redshift Research, said: “84 percent agreed that DDoS attacks can have a strong adverse impact on business.” The survey included 109 of these Saudi decision-makers, employed in companies with at least 500 employees said that 56 percent of respondents singled out data and revenue loss resulting of these attacks as the main concerns whereas 55 percent cited a related decline in productivity. Commenting on the survey, Saudi expert Mamdoh Allam, Saudi Arabia country manager of F5 Networks, said: “DDoS attacks are a major problem in Saudi Arabia and they are only going to intensify as cyber criminals compete with each other to devise new ways of causing disruption,” “DDoS attacks can affect businesses in many ways and attacks can cause damage running into many millions of dollars, permanently ruining a company’s reputation with everything from downtime to putting customer data at risk.” Allam explained that while attackers have traditionally used personal computer networks to launch DDoS attacks, it has become increasingly common to hijack oblivious global networks of malware infected machines to coordinate large-scale attacks. The survey also stated that 40 percent of the Saudi IT decision makers had endured a DDoS attack. 34 percent claimed normalcy after a few days, 36 percent after a week and 20 percent after a few weeks. Ten percent of those surveyed said it took up to a month to get back to business as usual. Around 45 percent did put the estimated cost of recovery at between $3 to 5 million, 30 percent between $5 to 10 million, and 16 percent between $10 to $20 million, and 2 percent said the damage was as high as $20 to $30 million. The survey also highlighted the need for greater industry-wide awareness. Allam stressed that the responsibility is now on businesses to place cyber security at the heart of their business strategies and do everything they can to gain a more comprehensive understanding of both cyber-attacker identity and their motivations. In particular, Allam pointed to the potential of full-proxy firewalls that can handle hundreds of thousand connections per second, policy management solutions that curb unauthorized access without impacting on the end-user, and uptime-boosting application security and traffic manager solutions that combine to block malicious intrusions and re-route legitimate requests. Source: http://www.arabnews.com/news/677396
Tag Archives: dos attacks
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
View article:
50% of companies unprepared for DDoS attacks
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/
Read this article:
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/
More:
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
Read the original:
Winning Poker Network $1M Guaranteed Tournament Cancelled After Apparent DDoS Attack
London teen pleads guilty to SpamHaus DDoS attack
The London teen behind the massive denial-of-service attack (DDoS) on SpamHaus and Cloudflare has pleaded guilty. Technology blogger Brian Krebs reported over the weekend that 17-year-old Sean Nolan McDonough, also known by his hacker alias “Narko,” pleaded guilty on Dec. 10 to computer misuse and money laundering in connection with the attack. McDonough was arrested in September 2013 after he played a role in the March 19, 2013 DDoS attacks aimed at Spamhaus, a Dutch anti-spam group and international nonprofit. SpamHaus later moved its servers behind CloudFlare, which then pushed the attackers to devote their efforts toward the company’s network. The attack sent 85Gbps of traffic. The U.K. National Crime Agency told Krebs that, “court reporting restrictions are in place in respect to a juvenile offender, [and] as a consequence the NCA will not be releasing further detail.” Source: http://www.scmagazine.com/sean-nolan-mcdonough-narko-pleads-guilty/article/388387/
Read the article:
London teen pleads guilty to SpamHaus DDoS attack
Could Tor fall victim to a DDoS attack in 2015?
Tor users could be targeted by police next year as governments seek to combat crime and reduce political dissent, according to a researcher at the security firm Cloudmark. Andrew Conway claimed the anonymity network is “reasonably fragile”, with police able to unmask service providers by comparing traffic spikes, generated by distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, from just a small number of endpoints. He added that the network was at risk of a complete shutdown if a government decided to launch a massive DDoS attack against it, which would overload the system with traffic. Conway said: “There are only a few thousand endpoints where Tor connects to the rest of the internet. Attacking those with a DDoS is well within the capability of many organisations and states.” “I think some oppressive regimes may decide that they have had enough of their dissidents using it and just want to shut the thing down, or some group in law enforcement may decide the same.” The security of Tor was called into question when the FBI arrested Blake ‘Defcon’ Benthall in November for his alleged work on the second iteration of Silk Road, an ecommerce site specialising in contraband that could only be accessed through Tor. Conway added that the police mole planted in the second Silk Road admin team was “probably” involved in the arrests that caused the first version’s collapse, and that he suspected they had used the DDoS and endpoint approach to monitor network traffic. Despite this, he said police are still unable to track down Tor user’s IP addresses, which would be necessary to identify those purchasing contraband online. “[Tor] still does give a level of anonymity for people looking for child pornography, but not if they are providing it,” he said. Source: http://www.cbronline.com/news/security/could-tor-fall-victim-to-a-ddos-attack-in-2015-4468576
Read the article:
Could Tor fall victim to a DDoS attack in 2015?
Channel mis-selling firewalls leads to DDoS attacks
The channel mis-selling firewalls to their customers as protection against DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks is partly to blame for the escalating number of attacks on enterprises. Dave Larson, CTO of Corero claims that tTraditional security solutions such as firewalls and IPS technology can’t handle the complexity of the modern DDoS attack – and even the more recent next generation firewalls can only provide a marginal benefit in fighting the attacks. Nevertheless, a survey conducted by Corero in 2013 had 40 percent of organisations stating they were relying on firewalls to protect them against DDoS attacks. “We see confusion in the market every day. DDoS protection vendors are fighting for mindshare with the end user community because there is still a vast misunderstanding about what DDoS is all about, and what it takes to eliminate the problem,” says Larson. “The problem is that firewall solutions are not well positioned to show the extent of the problem. Most organisations are shocked at the level and frequency of DDoS activity in their environment once they deploy a targeted in-line DDoS solution that is capable of exposing the threat.” He continues: “Proper DDoS protection is more than a ‘checkbox’ on a traditional security tool . Clicking the’DDoS on’ button on a firewall is not going to protect the business from the sophisticated and adaptive DDoS attacks that are taking down organisations, and distracting security teams from breach activity,” he explains. Larson concedes the channel is not deliberately advising customers to purchase the wrong protection, but “it is a matter of better education around why purpose built in-line appliance-based protection will allow their customers to properly defend against the modern DDoS attack landscape.” “There is no question that firewall technology is a tried and true security solution—a requirement for the majority of businesses. They key here is that that the channel can and should introduce dedicated DDoS protection as an additional layer to their overall security architecture. Implementing first line of defence technology to defeat DDoS at the very edge of the network allows all downstream technology infrastructure , like firewalls and intrusion prevention systems (IPS), to perform as intended. “There is a real opportunity for the channel to gain mind share , and ultimately revenue growth by understanding, and tapping into the DDoS market, this opportunity would complement the selling of traditional security solutions rather than replace them.” Source: http://www.channelpro.co.uk/news/8865/channel-mis-selling-firewalls-leads-to-ddos-attacks
View article:
Channel mis-selling firewalls leads to DDoS attacks
PTS calls for concerted action after TeliaSonera DDoS attack
Swedish postal and telecoms regulator PTS said it will call telecommunications operators to a meeting in January following two distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks recently. TeliaSonera’s mobile and fixed internet traffic was affected on 09-10 December, but PT did not say when the other had taken place. The regulator said the latest offensives had even affected the operators’ infrastructure and critical systems, which is unusual. As such problems can hit any operator, PTS sees the need for a dialogue in the sector to identify what action can be taken to prevent any such problems in the future, and how operators and authorities can cooperate to mitigate the fall-out of an attack. UPDATED: The high-profile hacking attack on Swedish internet giant Telia has been linked to a police raid on Pirate Bay, which experts say “provoked feelings” among hackers. UPDATED: The high-profile hacking attack on Swedish internet giant Telia has been linked to a police raid on Pirate Bay, which experts say “provoked feelings” among hackers. The attack has severely affected users of Telia’s online services with many struggling to get a steady connection on Friday. “It started just after 1 o’clock and seems to be the same kind of attack as before,” Henrik Johansson of Telia told the TT news agency. David Jacoby, chief researcher at data security firm Kaspersky Lab said the attack likely stems from a police raid earlier this week against the file-sharing Pirate Bay in Stockholm. Swedish cops briefly ground the site with its Swedish domain name before it come online again a few hours later with a different domain name. According to Jacoby the group that claims to be behind the Telia attack, Lizard Squad, is one of many underground groups involved in the anonymous Pirate Bay movement. “These attacks don’t come from nowhere. The Pirate Bay raid has provoked feelings in these groups,” Jacoby told the TT news agency. He added; “There will most likely be more similar attacks against film companies, games companies and public authorities,” he said. Twitter has already closed two accounts linked to the Lizard Squad in the wake of the attack. A previous attack over Tuesday and Wednesday also caused headaches for the company. A Telia spokesman told The Local at the time that the company had put “technical arrangements in place to ensure [an attack] won’t happen again”. Lateon Thursday, a well known hacking collective called Lizard Squad claimed responsibility for the attacks. It is understood that Lizard Squad was targeting gaming company Electronic Arts, which uses Telia for net connection. The group has a long history of carrying out DDOS attacks, which entails a website being bombarded with communication requests so that the servers become overloaded and the site crashes. The group has targeted XBox Live and the Playstation Network in the past, and even tweeted out a bomb threat to a plane carrying a Sony executive. Over five million Swedes use Telia to provide their home phones, TV and mobile services. The company is part-owned by the Swedish state. Sources: http://www.telecompaper.com/news/pts-calls-for-concerted-action-after-teliasonera-ddos-attack–1054899 http://www.thelocal.se/20141212/telia-hit-again-in-new-hacking-attack
See original article:
PTS calls for concerted action after TeliaSonera DDoS attack
Sony Reportedly Fights Back Against Hackers With DDoS Attacks Of Their Own
As many have heard by now, hackers have been chipping away at Sony Pictures, leaking information in the process, such as the salaries of Sony execs, celebrity information, email exchanges, and more. It also does not appear that the hacks are slowing down or that they could be stopping anytime soon. However if you thought that maybe Sony would be taking this lying down, you would be mistaken. According to reports, it seems that Sony Pictures has decided to fight back. How are they doing this? Well by attacking the hackers themselves in the form of a DDoS attack through the use of Amazon Web Services which has data centers located in Tokyo and Singapore. This is actually a tactic used to combat against movie and music piracy to help knock the servers hosting the files offline, but in this case, Sony is hoping that they are able to knock the hackers themselves offline too. It is unclear as to how effective their efforts have been so far, but it’s refreshing to see Sony go on the offensive. So far the hackers claim to have stolen as much as 100TB of Sony Pictures’ files which includes payroll information, financial information, budgets, and even feature films, some of which have already been leaked online. Source: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/12/sony-reportedly-fights-back-against-hackers-with-ddos-attacks-of-their-own/?utm_source=mainrss
Read the original:
Sony Reportedly Fights Back Against Hackers With DDoS Attacks Of Their Own