Tag Archives: imperva

Gambling sites are losing significant amounts of revenue due to raising DDoS attacks

Imperva releases data showing that 25% of all gambling sites were hit with DDoS attacks executed by botnets in June. This Help Net Security video uncovers how DDoS attacks on gambling sites lead to lost revenue and consumer trust. The post Gambling sites are losing significant amounts of revenue due to raising DDoS attacks appeared first on Help Net Security .

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Gambling sites are losing significant amounts of revenue due to raising DDoS attacks

Cybercriminals are using bots to deploy DDoS attacks on gambling sites

Imperva releases data showing that 25% of all gambling sites were hit with DDoS attacks executed by botnets in June. As the Wimbledon tennis tournament began at the end of June, DDoS attacks increased and impacted 10% of gambling sites. This continues a damaging pattern for the industry with 40% of gambling sites suffering attacks in the last 12 months, 80% of whom were hit multiple times. Overall, the number of application layer DDoS attacks … More ? The post Cybercriminals are using bots to deploy DDoS attacks on gambling sites appeared first on Help Net Security .

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Cybercriminals are using bots to deploy DDoS attacks on gambling sites

Imperva Application Security portfolio provides protection for any attack size

Imperva, the cybersecurity leader championing the fight to secure data and applications wherever they reside, announced significant enhancements to the Imperva Application Security portfolio, now offering targeted protection against account takeover (ATO), an industry-leading approach to detecting and blocking malicious attacks targeted at APIs, as well as partnerships with leading API vendors and an unprecedented three-second SLA for mitigating any type of DDoS attack. These capabilities help customers further harden their defenses against rapidly evolving … More ? The post Imperva Application Security portfolio provides protection for any attack size appeared first on Help Net Security .

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Imperva Application Security portfolio provides protection for any attack size

E-voting and DDoS concerns: The devil’s in the details

It’s a typical Wednesday. I’m sitting in the lounge at the Imperva office going through emails when I stumble onto a whitepaper titled Trust Implications of DDoS Protection in Online Elections. “That’s an interesting topic,” I think, and dive in. Coincidentally, this whitepaper turns out to be about our own DDoS protection service, which makes it even more interesting. Reading the document, I quickly realize that I don’t agree with several assumptions and interpretations outlined … More ? The post E-voting and DDoS concerns: The devil’s in the details appeared first on Help Net Security .

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E-voting and DDoS concerns: The devil’s in the details

Do you have what it takes to withstand modern DDoS attacks?

As the latest record DDoS attack hit GitHub and threatened to overwhelm its edge network, the popular Git-repository hosting service quickly switched to routing the attack traffic to their DDoS mitigation service. In the end, GitHub ended up completely unavailable for five minutes and intermittently unavailable for four. But while the effect of the attack could have been worse, GitHub’s engineering team aims to do better next time they are hit. Robert Hamilton, Director of … More ? The post Do you have what it takes to withstand modern DDoS attacks? appeared first on Help Net Security .

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Do you have what it takes to withstand modern DDoS attacks?

Q3 2017 Global DDoS Threat Landscape Report released

The newly released Q3 2017 Global DDoS Threat Landscape Report from Imperva Incapsula features insights on attacks and mitigation. These are some of the key findings: Bitcoin was one of the most targeted industries High packet rate attacks grew more common A third of network layer attacks were highly persistent Botnet activity out of India and Turkey continued to climb.

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Q3 2017 Global DDoS Threat Landscape Report released

Bigger than Mirai: Leet Botnet delivers 650 Gbps DDoS attack with ‘pulverized system files’

Earlier in the year, a huge DDoS attack was launched on Krebs on Security. Analysis showed that the attack pelted servers with 620 Gbps, and there were fears that the release of the Mirai source code used to launch the assault would lead to a rise in large-scale DDoS attacks. Welcome Leet Botnet. In the run-up to Christmas, security firm Imperva managed to fend off a 650 Gbps DDoS attack. But this was nothing to do with Mirai; it is a completely new form of malware, but is described as “just as powerful as the most dangerous one to date”. The concern for 2017 is that “it’s about to get a lot worse”. Clearly proud of the work put into the malware, the creator or creators saw fit to sign it. Analysis of the attack showed that the TCP Options header of the SYN packets used spelled out l33t, hence the Leet Botnet name. The attack itself took place on 21 December, but details of what happened are only just starting to come out. It targeted a number of IP addresses, and Imperva speculates that a single customer was not targeted because of an inability to resolve specific IP addresses due to the company’s proxies. One wave of the attack generated 650 Gbps of traffic — or more than 150 million packets per second. Despite attempting to analyze the attack, Imperva has been unable to determine where it originated from, but the company notes that it used a combination of both small and large payloads to “clog network pipes  and  bring down network switches”. While the Mirai attacks worked by firing randomly generated strings of characters to generate traffic, in the case of Leet Botnet the malware was accessing local files and using scrambled versions of the compromised content as its payload. Imperva describes the attack as “a mishmash of pulverized system files from thousands upon thousands of compromised devices”. What’s the reason for using this particular method? Besides painting a cool mental image, this attack method serves a practical purpose. Specifically, it makes for an effective obfuscation technique that can be used to produce an unlimited number of extremely randomized payloads. Using these payloads, an offender can circumvent signature-based security systems that mitigate attacks by identifying similarities in the content of network packets. While in this instance Imperva was able to mitigate the attack, the company says that Leet Botnet is “a sign of things to come”. Brace yourself for a messy 2017… Source: http://betanews.com/2016/12/28/leet-botnet-ddos/

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Bigger than Mirai: Leet Botnet delivers 650 Gbps DDoS attack with ‘pulverized system files’

“The amount of traffic, or bandwidth, that is able to be generated and used as a weapon is at an all-time high.,” said one expert.

The company measured threats faced by its customers during a roughly one-year time period, seeing a 211 percent year-over-year increase in attacks. More commonly known as DDoS attacks, they are designed to flood servers with artificial internet traffic that causes access interruption to websites or network systems. The firm largely attributed this apparent growth to the establishment of several botnet operations — which serve as a platform to automate and increase attack volume — and malicious actors’ ability to access greater bandwidth to help generate and use such weapons. Dark Web dealers are using these botnets, according to Imperva, to offer more effective cyber tools to would-be customers. “The amount of traffic, or bandwidth, that is able to be generated and used as a weapon is at an all-time high. This is likely the result of more compromised machines with higher bandwidth,” Imperva Vice President Tim Matthews told FedScoop. In short, hackers are able to launch denial of service attacks by manipulating a hosting provider to re-route IP addresses towards a preferred server. Those DDoS attacks recorded by Imperva — recorded between March 2015 and April 2016 — targeted a diverse range of clients. Even so, all of the attacks similarly aimed to disrupt each organization’s digital operations at one of two distinct levels: application or network. To be clear, an application-based DDoS effectively works to discontinue online access to a specific property, like a website or software service, rather than an entire network. Because app-based DDoS attacks are by nature less expansive, they typically leverage less traffic. In the past, DDoS-ing an entire network has presented a challenge for hackers due to the sheer artificial traffic required to pull it off. But Imperva’s new report suggests that botnets are significantly changing this dynamic; making it easier for individual operations to disrupt larger segments of the internet. Another worrisome trend in the DDoS arena, spotted by Imperva, is that when a target gets hit once, it should prepare for another wave. Data shows that 40 percent of affected targets were attacked more than once, while 16 percent were targeted more than five times. In the past, DDoS attacks have been used to distract an organization from a more malicious data breach, leading to the possible exfiltration of valuable data like customer finances and personal records. Here’s what a DDoS looks like via a data visualization by cybersecurity firm Norse : Source: http://fedscoop.com/ddos-attacks-up-211-percent-august-2016

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“The amount of traffic, or bandwidth, that is able to be generated and used as a weapon is at an all-time high.,” said one expert.

DDoS Attacks Increase 200%; UK Now Second Most Targeted Nation

DDoS attacks have increased by over 200% in the last year, according to new research from Imperva. The uptick in attacks has been attributed to DDoS-for-hire services, the company said. DDoS attacks are now among the most common cyber threats businesses can face, according to Imperva. Between April 1, 2015 and March 31, 2016 it recorded an average of 445 attacks targeting its customers per week. More than 40% of customers affected were targeted more than once, and 16% were hit more than five times. The majority of attacks noted by Imperva targeted the application layer, making up 60% of all DDoS attacks. The remainder targeted the network layer. However, Imperva noted that the number of application layer attacks are trending downwards, dropping by 5% year over year. If that trend continues, network layer attacks could be just as common as application layer ones before too long. The most recent quarter covered by this report shows a big jump in the size of network layer attacks. The biggest recorded attack was 470 Gbps, while many others exceeded 200 Gbps. Imperva now says attacks of this size are a “regular occurrence.” These increases in DDoS attacks have been attributed to DDoS-for-hire services, where anyone can pay as little as $5 to launch a minute-long DDoS attack on a target of their choice. This means attacks can be launched by just about anyone—whether it’s because of a grudge against a particular company or just boredom. These now account for 93% of DDoS attacks, up from 63.8% in Q2 2015. Imperva says this has directly led to the increase in overall DDoS numbers. Another clue to an increase in DDoS-for-hire services and what Imperva calls “casual offenders” is a decrease in attack complexity. Starting in Q2 2015 the company recorded a decrease in multi-vector attacks; attacks using multiple vectors and payloads indicate a more sophisticated, complex attack. However, Q1 2016 saw an increase in the volume of assaults using five or more payloads. “This countertrend reminds us that—in parallel with the increased “hobbyist” activity—more capable cyber-criminals continue to improve their methods. As per the first rule of the DDoS mitigation industry, attacks continue to get larger and more sophisticated on the high-end of the scale,”  the report said . The report also examined where DDoS attacks generally emerge from. Once again, China tops the list, with a sharp increase recorded in South Korea. The excellent broadband infrastructure in the country enables attacks to easily launch effective attacks, Imperva said. The UK is now the world’s second most-attacked country, after the United States of America. Most attacks targeted small and medium businesses, but some bigger institutions, including the  BBC  and  HSBC , were hit as well. Source: http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/ddos-attacks-increase-200/

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DDoS Attacks Increase 200%; UK Now Second Most Targeted Nation