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The latest on major DDoS and phishing attacks, and more

An analyst has confirmed that several, unnamed financial institutions have suffered losses in the “millions” owing to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. According to Avivah Litan , VP and distinguished analyst at research firm Gartner , three U.S. banks were hit by short-lived DDoS attacks in recent months after fraudsters targeted a wire payment switch, a central wire system at banks, to transfer funds. » A phishing attack enabled hackers to modify the DNS records for several domains of media sites, including those run by The New York Times , Twitter and the Huffington Post U.K. Investigations revealed that the companies were not even the ones targeted by the attackers, who claimed to be the Syrian Electronic Army , a band of pro-Assad hacktivists responsible for a number of IT takedowns in recent months. In order to commandeer the major media sites, intruders compromised a reseller account that had access to the IT systems of Melbourne IT , an Australian registrar, and targeted an employee using an emailed spear phishing ruse. » The PCI Security Standards Council gave merchants a first look at changes to its credit card data and payment application security guidelines that could be introduced later this year. In mid-August, the council released the “3.0 Change Highlights” document, a preview to the updated PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA DSS), which are set to be published Nov. 7. Expected changes in version 3.0 include a new requirement that merchants draw up a current diagram showing how cardholder data flows through organizations’ systems, and added guidance on protecting point-of-sale (POS) terminals from attacks, as well as educational explanations of why the 12 core security requirements have been included in the standard. » Saboteurs have introduced a rare breed of banking trojan capable of infecting Linux users. The malware, called Hand of Thief, is being sold on Russian underground forums and will soon offer a “full-blown” suite of malicious features, making it comparable to other major, commercially available financial malware, RSA researchers discovered. Hand of Thief’s price tag could reach $3,000 once criminals add a suite of web injections to its existing form grabber and backdoor infection vectors. » Around 14,000 former and present employees at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) had their personally identifiable information (PII) accessed by an unauthorized party who gained access to the agency’s network. The breach, which may have happened in late July, did not impact classified data, the DOE revealed. But, the incident could mean that sensitive data linkable to an individual was exposed. » In late August, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a preliminary draft framework in support of President Obama ‘s executive order, “Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.” Earlier in August, NIST also released revisions to two of its security-related manuals, the first amendments since NIST released them in 2005, reflecting evolving malware threats and the trend of organizations using automated patch management. » Errata : Our apologies to Steve Lee , who we quoted in an insider threats story in August, for erroneously placing the office of his company, Steve Lee and Associates, in Texas, rather than Los Angeles. Source: http://www.scmagazine.com/news-briefs-the-latest-on-major-ddos-and-phishing-attacks-and-more/article/311635/

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The latest on major DDoS and phishing attacks, and more

Schoolboy arrested over Spamhaus DDoS, world’s biggest cyber attack

In March 2013, a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack of unprecedented ferocity was launched against the servers of Spamhaus, an international non-profit dedicated to battling spam. A DDoS is an attack wherein the servers of a targeted online service are slowed to a crawl with loads of pointless email or file uploads that clog up their processing ability. The March Spamhaus attack peaked at 300 gigabits per second, Spamhaus CEO Steve Linford told the BBC at the time – the largest ever recorded, with enough force to cause worldwide disruption of the internet. In April, one suspect was arrested in Spain. Now, it’s come to light, another suspect was also secretly arrested in April – this one being a London schoolboy. The 16-year-old was arrested as part of an international dragnet against a suspected organised crime gang, reports the London Evening Standard. Detectives from the National Cyber Crime Unit detained the unnamed teenager at his home in southwest London. The newspaper quotes a briefing document on the British investigation, codenamed Operation Rashlike, about the arrest: The suspect was found with his computer systems open and logged on to various virtual systems and forums. The subject has a significant amount of money flowing through his bank account. Financial investigators are in the process of restraining monies. Officers seized his computers and mobile devices. The boy’s arrest, by detectives from the National Cyber Crime Unit, followed an international police operation against those suspected of carrying out the massive cyber attack, which slowed down the internet worldwide. The briefing document says that the DDoS affected services that included the London Internet Exchange. The boy has been released on bail until later this year, the London Evening Standard reports. The arrest follows close on the heels of two other London-based arrests resulting from international cyber-policing: Last week’s arrest of eight men in connection with a £1.3 million ($2.08 million) bank heist carried out with a remote-control device they had the brass to plug into a Barclays branch computer, and The arrest of 12 men in connection with a scheme to boobytrap computers at Santander, one of the UK’s largest banks, by rigging the same type of remote-control device found in Barclays – devices that enable remote bank robbery. Truly, the UK isn’t fooling around when it comes to cybercrime – a fact it’s making clear with the robust work of the National Cyber Crime Unit, which itself will soon be rolled into the even more cybercrime-comprehensive arms of the National Crime Agency. The National Crime Agency, due to launch 7 October, is going to comprise a number of distinct divisions: Organised Crime, Border Policing, Economic Crime, and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, on top of also housing the National Cyber Crime Unit. If the recent arrests are any indication, it would seem that the UK’s on the right track with cyber crime. May cyber crooks, both the seasoned and the schoolboys, take heed. Source: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/09/27/schoolboy-arrested-over-spamhaus-ddos-worlds-biggest-cyber-attack/

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Schoolboy arrested over Spamhaus DDoS, world’s biggest cyber attack

Distributed Denial-of-Service Attacks and Midsize Firms

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

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Distributed Denial-of-Service Attacks and Midsize Firms

Lessons Learned From the Banking Industry DDoS Attacks: Good Advice Worth Heeding

Now that the banking industry has gone through four rounds of very public DDoS attacks, experts are looking at what happened to extract some “lessons learned” to turn this negative into a positive. Even if your business isn’t a financial institution, there’s good advice here that’s certainly worth heeding. Lesson One: No matter what industry or business you’re in, you need to have a plan in place to defend your business. DDoS attacks are not just hitting the banking industry. If your business has competitors that would benefit from your website being down, then you are vulnerable. Since it’s possible to buy DDoS as a service, anyone can launch an attack against you for as little as $10. Lesson Two: Don’t wait for an attack to put a solution in place to defend your company. Once an attack starts – and it could happen at any time – your organization’s website could be completely out of commission for an extended period. Why risk downtime when it’s easy enough to put a solution in place today? The solution could be on premise, in the cloud, or a hybrid combination. Lesson Three: Get a dedicated DDoS solution. Don’t count on traditional security devices like firewalls and IDS/IPS to protect your business because they just aren’t designed to handle modern DDoS attacks. When you choose a solution, consider that the volume level of attacks has been getting bigger, and the attacks have grown more sophisticated. Get a solution that meets today’s needs. Lesson Four: Create a detailed incident response plan. Know what to do if/when an attack occurs and assign tasks to specific people to avoid delays in responding. Lesson Five: If your organization is hit by an attack, closely monitor for indicators of compromise (IOCs). Many experts believe that DDoS attacks are smoke screens for fraud and other types of attacks that are designed to steal money or intellectual property. Lesson Six: Be willing to share information. DDoS attacks have been widespread and businesses, solution vendors and law enforcement agencies are better together than individually. If we look at what happened with the banking industry attacks, it got easier to defend against them once all types of organizations collaborated with each other to share intelligence, profiles of the attacks and mitigation strategies. Lesson Seven: This is more of a prediction than a lesson learned. Experts predict that critical infrastructure such as utilities, transportation systems, pipelines, the electrical grid, etc., will be targeted for DDoS attacks at some point. Attackers have the ability to target industrial controls as well as business websites. Administrators who control critical infrastructure need to re-read lessons one through six and take them to heart. Source: http://www.securitybistro.com/?p=8023

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Lessons Learned From the Banking Industry DDoS Attacks: Good Advice Worth Heeding

Threat of the Week: Sept. 11 Quiet But DDoS On The Rise (Again)

September 11 came, it went and despite the FBI warning to credit unions to be ready for a bump in hostile activities on that anniversary date, multiple experts said they saw absolutely no traffic increase. But they also had worrisome news: There has been a sharp rise in low-grade Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks aimed at financial institutions, often in association with attempted fraud, but sometimes apparently simply an angry act by a rejected loan applicant or a terminated employee. First, the 9/11 news: “Nothing unusual happened on September 11. The reason there is nothing to report is that the volume is the same as the day before,” said Ashley Stephenson, CEO of Corero, a Hudson, Mass.-based DDoS mitigation firm. “Every day there are attacks.” Chris Novak of the Verizon Risk Team said likewise: “We saw no spike in activity on 9/11.” Rich Bolstridge, a DDoS expert with Cambridge, Mass-based network traffic firm Akamai, made it three: “We saw no increase in activity on September 11. We had expected to see activity. But it was very quiet.” The big DDoS guns fired by al Qassam and other actors usually said to be connected to nation states in the Middle East may not have been out on 9/11, but the bad news is the jump in low-grade attacks that may be small compared to the giant attacks unleashed by al Qassam are plenty large enough to knock an unprepared credit union off line and, said the experts, most credit unions remain unprepared to adequately deflect DDoS assaults of just about any magnitude. “We are surprised how naive CUs are about DDoS,” said Kirk Drake, CEO of Hagerstown, Md.-based CUSO Ongoing Operations. “They don’t realize how easy it has become for just about anyone to aim DDoS at a target.” That is the rub, Terrence Gareau, principal research scientist for DDoS mitigation firm Prolexic in Hollywood, Fla., explained: “There is a very low barrier to entry for DDoS. We are talking $5 that will buy you 600 seconds of DDoS.” That may only be 10 minutes, but the plunger who can come up with $50 could put a credit union down for an afternoon. A chilling factoid via a report from Santa Clara, Calif.-based NSFOCUS, a DDoS mitigation firm: “Based on traffic analysis, there are 1.29 DDoS attacks occurring worldwide every two minutes, on average.” The company added, “Most attacks are short and small. The report found that 93.2% of DDoS attacks were less than 30 minutes in duration and 80.1% did not surpass a traffic rate of 50 Mbps.” By contrast, the data throughput in al Qassam attacks has sometimes exceeded 45 Gbps, meaning it is vastly larger. Van Abernethy, an NSFOCUS spokesperson, elaborated, “The main news – the press focuses on the big DDoS – but the reality is that unreported DDoS goes on all the time. There are a lot of small attacks.” And then it gets worse still: “Small attacks are often accompanied by data exfiltration attempts, especially at financial institutions,” said Abernethy. Verizon’s Novak agreed: “We are seeing where DDoS is used to distract a medium-size financial institution. While they are busy fighting off the DDoS. they don’t see that terabytes of data just walked out the door. That’s scary.” A similar warning was issued a few weeks ago by respected Gartner analyst Avivah Litan who said she knew of three instances where DDoS was used to distract financial institution security as fraud was committed. She declined to offer specific details. At CUNA Mutual, risk expert Ken Otsuka said that in the past year one loss associated with a DDoS attack had been filed. He also offered no specifics. Add it up, however, and the situation is grim. DDoS as a service – available for hire by those with a grudge or with criminal intent – is increasingly available, it is cheap, and at least some providers happily accept Bitcoin, the virtual currency with some anonymity built in. Importantly, just about no technical skill is required, just a few dollars and a willingness to name a target. On the credit union front, the sense among experts is that the largest institutions – perhaps the top 25 or 50 – may have credible DDoS mitigation tools in place. As for the many thousands of others, the collective opinion is that probably most are unprotected. That could paint an attractive bull’s-eye for crooks. “There’s a trend where we see attacks going down market,” said Novak, “where the criminals are attacking smaller financial institutions because they don’t have the same defenses as the big banks.” Source: http://www.cutimes.com/2013/09/13/threat-of-the-week-sept-11-quiet-but-ddos-on-the-r

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Threat of the Week: Sept. 11 Quiet But DDoS On The Rise (Again)

Countering Attacks Hiding In Denial-Of-Service Smokescreens

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

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Countering Attacks Hiding In Denial-Of-Service Smokescreens

Federal DDoS Warnings Are Outdated

It’s always the same: Government cybersecurity experts learn of pending distributed denial of service attacks, especially around the anniversary of Sept. 11, and issue warning after warning after warning, as though security is something we can do on a “per-warning” basis. I really don’t understand this way of approaching security or why government agencies believe such warnings are helpful. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be warned — not at all. What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t wait for a warning before we do something about security. On Aug. 5, for instance, the FBI and the Financial Services and Information Sharing and Analysis Center issued a warning that the same groups behind the unsuccessful Operations USA and Operation Israel attacks in May were planning a new DDoS attack. Their recommendations leave me perplexed. For instance, they suggest: – Implement backup and recovery plans. Really? We’re supposed to wait for a warning on a 9/11 DDoS threat to know that we need to do this? We’re in serious trouble if that’s the case. – Scan and monitor emails for malware. Again, really? This is a recommendation? Is there truly anyone out there who still doesn’t do this? And, if there is, they deserve whatever happens to their network, I say. – Outline DDoS mitigation strategies. Finally, something a bit more relevant. I know for a fact that most companies aren’t putting much thought into DDoS defense strategy. Unfortunately, if you’re hosting a server with public access, you’ve no choice but to consider this with the utmost seriousness. Just how seriously, you ask? Well, that all depends on how much of your company’s livelihood hinges on that server. It’s an undeniable fact of our Internet life that these things will keep happening. No matter if it’s 9/11 or OpUSA or a private single hacker from Russia or China. They’ll continue to happen, and we all understand the need to be prepared. DDoS preparedness is accomplished as a strategy. It involves hardware, large bandwidth, ISP collaboration, remote redundancy and other possible strategies for defense and elusion. This isn’t anti-malware. You can’t create a signature or heuristic against DDoS. This is sheer brute force in that you win if you’re stronger, or if you’re the more elusive, so they can’t really get you. And that’s precisely why you need a strategy, and you need to plan it now. You can also purchase hardware — but make it part of a strategy. Don’t expect it to be the one and only thing you need to do to fend off a DDoS attack. Source: http://www.informationweek.com/government/security/federal-ddos-warnings-are-outdated/240161165

9/11 DDoS Alert for Banks, Agencies

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

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9/11 DDoS Alert for Banks, Agencies

SatoshiDice hit by DDoS attack, but bets continue

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

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SatoshiDice hit by DDoS attack, but bets continue

DOSarrest begins Offering Vulnerability Testing and Optimization

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

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DOSarrest begins Offering Vulnerability Testing and Optimization