U.K. officials have extradited the man who allegedly masterminded a cyberattack earlier this year that impacted two of England’s biggest banks. They have accused 29-year-old Daniel Kaye, who was found in Germany, of using an infected computer network to damage and blackmail both Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group, The Financial Times reported. Following the cyberattack, Lloyds found its digital services crippled on and off for over 48 hours in January 2017, preventing some customers from being able to check their bank balances or send out payments via the network. The assault was a distributed “denial of service” (DDoS) attack, which overwhelms a firm’s website so its services don’t operate properly. The same month, Barclays fought off their own cyberattack, according to the National Crime Agency. These cybercrime attacks occurred just months following a high-profile cyberattack against Tesco Bank that caused 9,000 people to have their money stolen from accounts. HSBC also saw an attack against its personal banking website and mobile app in 2016, causing thousands of customers to be locked out of their accounts. “The investigation leading to these charges was complex and crossed borders,” said Luke Wyllie, the National Crime Agency’s senior operations manager. “Our cybercrime officers have analyzed reams of data on the way. Cybercrime is not victimless, and we are determined to bring suspects before the courts,” the Financial Times reported. Daniel Kaye is also being accused of operating a cyberattack against Liberia’s largest internet provider, Lonestar MTN. Kaye is scheduled to appear in the U.K.’s Westminster Magistrates Court on Aug. 31. “In January, we were the target of a substantial distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack,” Lloyds Banking Group said in remarks according to news by the Financial Times . “This was successfully defended but resulted in intermittent and temporary service issues for some customers. There was no attempt to access the bank’s systems and no customer details or accounts were compromised.” Source: http://www.pymnts.com/news/security-and-risk/2017/cybercriminal-daniel-kaye-extradited-following-ddos-cyberattacks/
Tag Archives: stop ddos attacks
Critical infrastructure not ready for DDoS attacks: FOI data report
The UK’s critical infrastructure is vulnerable to DDoS attacks due to failure to carry out basic security defence work – 39 percent of respondents to a recent survey had not completed the government’s ’10 Steps to Cyber Security’ programme, which was first issued in 2012. New data was obtained by Corero Network Security under the Freedom of Information Act surveying 338 critical infrastructure organisations in the UK, including fire and rescue services, police forces, ambulance trusts, NHS trusts, energy suppliers and transport organisations; it also showed that 42 percent of NHS Trusts had not completed the programme. More than half (51 percent) of these critical infrastructure organisations were described by Corero as ignoring the risk of short, stealth DDoS attacks on their networks – which typically account for around 90 percent of DDoS attacks and are used by attackers to plant malware or ransomware, or engage in data theft. Corero reports that these stealth attacks are typically less than 30 minutes in duration, and 98 percent of those stopped by the company were less than 10Gbps in volume, hence they often go unnoticed by security staff, but are frequently used by attackers in their efforts to target, map and infiltrate a network. In a statement issued today, Sean Newman, director of product panagement at Corero, comments: “Cyber-attacks against national infrastructure have the potential to inflict significant, real-life disruption and prevent access to critical services that are vital to the functioning of our economy and society. These findings suggest that many such organisations are not as cyber resilient as they should be, in the face of growing and sophisticated cyber threats.” Newman adds, “ By not detecting and investigating these short, surgical, DDoS attacks on their networks, infrastructure organisations could also be leaving their doors wide-open for malware or ransomware attacks, data theft or more serious cyber attacks.” It was also pointed out that in the event of a breach, these organisations could be liable for fines of up to £17 million, or four percent of global turnover, under the UK government’s proposals to implement the EU’s Network and Information Systems (NIS) directive, from May 2018. In an email to SC, David Emm, principal security researcher, Kaspersky Lab observed, “The world isn’t ready for cyber -threats against critical infrastructure – but criminals are clearly ready and able to launch attacks on these facilities. We’ve seen attempts on power grids, oil refineries, steel plants, financial infrastructure, seaports and hospitals – and these are cases where organisations have spotted attacks and acknowledged them. However, many more companies do neither, and the lack of reporting these incidents hampers risk assessment and response to the threat.” Edgard Capdevielle, CEO of Nozomi Networks, also emailed SC to comment: “This report emphasises the impact of DDoS attacks and how they are often used as a cover to distract security teams while infecting systems with malware or stealing data. Such initiatives are often the first step in “low and slow” attacks that provide the perpetrators with the information and access they need to carry out system disruptions. Examples of this are the Ukraine power outages of 2015 and 2016, both of which involved cyber-attacks which persisted for many months before culminating in shutdowns. “In light of this information, CNI organisations should give a high priority to re-assessing their cyber-security programmes, evaluate where they are in relation to government recommendations, and inform themselves about current technologies available for protection….The right approach is to both shore up defenses and be able to quickly respond when attacks do occur.” Previously, when talking about the new UK legislation targetting CNI, Eldon Sprickerhoff, founder and chief security strategist at eSentire commented in an email to SC, “Although cyber-security regulations will require significant effort for the companies that are affected, this new legislation by the UK government demonstrates that they understand the severity of cyber-threats in today’s digital world and the destruction they can cause, if undeterred. Even if you’re not a CNI, cyber-threats should concern you. With cyber-criminals constantly adjusting their tactics, it is imperative that companies never stop defending themselves by constantly improving and expanding their cyber-security practices. Managed detection and response and incident response planning are common ways companies can stay ahead of their attackers.” Sprickerhoff recommended the same measures be taken by CNI organisations to improve cyber-security as for other enterprises, namely: Encryption – store sensitive data that is only readable with a digital key Integrity checks – regularly check for any changes to system files Network monitoring – use tools to help you detect for suspicious behaviour Penetration testing – conduct controlled cyber-attacks on systems to test their defences and identify vulnerabilities Education – train your employees in cyber-security awareness and tightly manage access to any confidential information Source: https://www.scmagazineuk.com/critical-infrastructure-not-ready-for-ddos-attacks-foi-data-report/article/684838/
Visit link:
Critical infrastructure not ready for DDoS attacks: FOI data report
Hackers Use Thousands Of Infected Android Devices In DDoS Attacks
Hundreds of thousands of home routers, IP cameras and other internet-of-things devices have been infected with malware over the past year and have been used to launch some of the largest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks ever recorded. Attackers are now doing the same with Android devices, with the help of malicious applications hosted on Google Play and other third-party app stores. A joint investigation by the security teams from Akamai, Cloudflare, Flashpoint, Google, RiskIQ and Team Cymru has led to the discovery of a large botnet made up of over 100,000 Android devices located in more than 100 countries. The investigation was launched in response to large DDoS attacks that have hit several content providers and content delivery networks over the past few weeks. The goal behind DDoS attacks is to flood servers with bogus traffic in order to use up their available internet bandwidth or their CPU and RAM resources so they can no longer serve requests from legitimate users. Servers are typically configured to handle a certain number of concurrent connections based on the estimated number of visitors that they’re expected to receive. Load balancers, firewalls and other anti-DDoS technologies are used to limit the negative impact of any sudden traffic spikes, but with enough firepower, attackers can disrupt even the most well-protected networks. This particular Android botnet, which has been dubbed WireX, was used to send tens of thousands of HTTP requests that were meant to resemble those coming from legitimate browsers. The researchers were able to establish a pattern to the User-Agent string reported by the rogue clients and traced them back to malicious Android applications. Some of the applications were available in third-party app stores that came pre-installed on devices, but around 300 of them were hosted on Google Play. “Many of the identified applications fell into the categories of media/video players, ringtones or tools such as storage managers and app stores with additional hidden features that were not readily apparent to the end users that were infected,” the researchers said in a report. Most of the rogue applications requested device administrator permissions during installation, which allowed them to launch a background service and participate in DDoS attacks even when the applications themselves were not actively used or when the devices were locked. Google has removed the malicious applications from Google Play and started to remotely remove them from affected devices as well. Furthermore, the Play Protect feature which runs locally on Android devices prevents these apps from being reinstalled, the researchers said. Some antivirus products detect the malicious applications as an “Android Clicker” Trojan which might suggest that the botnet’s original purpose was click fraud, a method of earning revenue from fraudulent clicks on advertisements. However, by the time it was discovered, the botnet had clearly been repurposed for DDoS and was receiving attack instructions from command-and-control servers hosted under the same domain name. This is not the first Android-based DDoS botnet ever found, but it is certainly the largest. At the peak of the attacks, the researchers observed malicious traffic coming from over 120,000 unique IP addresses per hour. Last year, security firm Imperva uncovered a similar botnet that was used to launch DDoS attacks from around 27,000 infected Android devices. While Google is making significant efforts to keep malware off Google Play and constantly scans the apps hosted on its platform, this is not the first time when malicious applications have made it past its defenses. Just last week, the company removed applications that were using an advertising toolkit with spying capabilities and in May the company removed around 40 apps that included click fraud functionality. Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lconstantin/2017/08/28/hackers-use-thousands-of-infected-android-devices-in-ddos-attacks/#67c498825228
See the article here:
Hackers Use Thousands Of Infected Android Devices In DDoS Attacks
3 Ways to Defeat DDoS Attacks
In 2012, a number of DDoS attacks hit Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank and PNC Bank. These attacks have since spread across most industries from government agencies to local schools and are showing an almost yearly evolution, with the most recent focus being the Internet of Things (IoT). In 2016, compromised cameras, printers, DVRs and other IoT appliances were used in a large attack on Dyn that took down major websites including Amazon, Twitter, Netflix, Etsy and Spotify. Inside Distributed Denial-of-Service Threats Although these large attacks dominate the headlines, they’re not what most enterprises will deal with day to day. The most common attacks are in the range of 20 to 30 Gbps or less, while larger attacks have been reported at 1.2 tbps. Creating DDoS Defense Security technology is becoming more sophisticated, but so are hackers, which means attacks can be much more difficult to mitigate now than in the past. Enterprises must be knowledgeable and prepared with mitigation techniques as the attacks continue to evolve. DDoS mitigation comes in three models: Scrubbing Centers The most common DDoS mitigation option for enterprises is to buy access to a scrubbing center service. During an attack, traffic is redirected to the security provider’s network, where the bad traffic is “scrubbed out” and only good traffic is returned to the customer. This option is good for multi-ISP environments and can be used to counter both volumetric and application-based attacks. For added protection, some providers can actually place a device in your data center, but this is not as cost-effective as the cloud-based option. ISP- Clean Pipes Approach With the rise of DDoS attacks, many ISPs have started their own scrubbing centers internally, and for a premium will monitor and mitigate attacks on their customers’ websites. In this scenario, ISPs operate as a one-stop-shop for bandwidth, hosting and DDoS mitigation. But some ISPs are more experienced at this than others, so customers must be sure to thoroughly test and research the quality of the service offered by their ISPs. Content Delivery Network Approach The distributed nature of content delivery networks (CDNs) means that websites live globally on multiple servers versus one origin server, making them difficult to take down. Large CDNs may have over 100,000 servers distributing or caching web content all over the world. However, CDN-based mitigation is really only a good option for enterprises that require core CDN functionality, as porting content to a CDN can be a time-intensive project. Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/gartnergroup/2017/08/28/3-ways-to-defeat-ddos-attacks/#dda62aada78f
See the original article here:
3 Ways to Defeat DDoS Attacks
DDoS attacks down in second quarter
Attacks designed to overwhelm servers with internet traffic — known as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks — were less frequent this spring than last, according to Akamai’s second quarter report. Akamai is a major seller of services to fight DDoS attacks. According to the company’s report, attacks declined by 18 percent between the beginning of April and end of June from the same period last year. DDoS attacks use hacked computers and internet-connected devices to send abnormal levels of traffic to a target, forcing it to slow or crash. A DDoS attack knocked out a critical internet switchboard known as Dyn, a domain name system provider, in October that rendered Twitter, Netflix and The New York Times unreachable. In May, the FCC reported a DDoS attack slammed its commenting system, though critics have questioned whether this was an attack or just a flood of commenters weighing in on the contentious issue of net neutrality. The report notes that while attacks are down year over year, attacks jumped 28 percent from the first quarter. But, it cautions quarterly data may not be the best measure of trends. It explains many attacks are tied to yearly events: “For most organizations, security events aren’t seasonal, they happen year round, without the ability to anticipate attacks. Unless you’re the security team for a merchant, in which case you need to plan for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, since they are likely to be the high water marks for attack traffic for the year.” While attacks rose from the beginning of the year, attack severity declined. “[F]or the first time in many years” Akamai observed no attacks exceeding 100 gigabits per second. The report speculates one potential cause of lower severity attacks might be international success taking the networks of hijacked computers, known as botnets, offline. Gaming companies were the victim in around 80 percent of attacks observed by Akamai in the second quarter, with one customer seeing more than 550 attacks. At the USENIX conference this year, Akamai researchers, teaming with other industry players and academics, presented research that the Dyn attack was actually intended as an attack on one of Dyn’s clients — the gaming platform PlayStation. According to that presentation, Dyn crashed as it handled requests headed to PlayStation. Source: http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/347496-ddos-attacks-down-in-second-quarter
View the original here:
DDoS attacks down in second quarter
What is Pulse Wave? Hackers devise new DDoS attack technique aimed at boosting scale of assaults
The new attack method allows hackers to shut down targets’ networks for longer periods while simultaneously conducting attacks on multiple targets. Hackers have begun launching a new kind of DDoS attack designed to boost the scale of attacks by targeting soft spots in traditional DDoS mitigation tactics. Dubbed “Pulse Wave”, the new attack technique allows hackers to shut down targeted organisations’ networks for prolonged periods while simultaneously conducting attacks on multiple targets. The new attacks may render traditional DDoS mitigation tactics useless, experts say. Some of the pulse wave DDoS attacks detected lasted for days and “scaled as high as 350 Gbps”, according to security researchers at Imperva, who first spotted the new threat. “Comprised of a series of short-lived pulses occurring in clockwork-like succession, pulse wave assaults accounted for some of the most ferocious DDoS attacks we mitigated in the second quarter of 2017,” Imperva researchers said in a report. The researchers said they believe that the pulse wave technique was “purposefully designed” by “skilled bad actors” to boost hackers’ attack scale and output by taking advantage of “soft spots in hybrid ‘appliance first, cloud second’ mitigation solutions.” Traditional DDoS attacks involve a continuous barrage of assaults against a targeted network, while pulse wave involves short bursts of attacks that have a “highly repetitive pattern, consisting of one or more pulses every 10 minutes”. The new attacks last for at least an hour and can extend to even days. A single pulse is large and powerful enough to completely congest a network. “The most distinguishable aspect of pulse wave assaults is the absence of a ramp-up period — all attack resources are committed at once, resulting in an event that, within the first few seconds, reaches a peak capacity that is maintained over its duration,” the Imperva researchers said. ulse wave takes advantage of appliance-first hybrid mitigation solutions by preying on the “Achilles’ heel of appliance-first mitigation solutions”, – the devices’ incapability of dealing with sudden powerful attack traffic surges. The Imperva researchers said the emergence of pulse wave DDoS attacks indicates a significant shift in the attack landscape. “While pulse wave attacks constitute a new attack method and have a distinct purpose, they haven’t emerged in a vacuum. Instead, they’re a product of the times and should be viewed in the context of a broader shift toward shorter-duration DDoS attacks,” researchers said. The Imperva researchers predicted that such attacks will continue, becoming more persistent and growing, boosted via botnets. Source: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/what-pulse-wave-hackers-devise-new-ddos-attack-technique-aimed-boosting-scale-assaults-1635423
Read the original post:
What is Pulse Wave? Hackers devise new DDoS attack technique aimed at boosting scale of assaults
Why DDoS attacks show no signs of slowing down
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks caused substantial damage to organisations across APAC and the world in the past year. According to Neustar’s recent ‘Worldwide DDoS Attacks and Cyber Insights Research Report’, 84 percent organisations surveyed globally were hit by a DDoS attack in the last 12 months, with 86 percent of those organisations were hit multiple times. The code used to cause these large outages was published openly, and soon after all sorts of attacks and variants of the original code were causing havoc around the world. Detection is too slow DDoS attacks are not only occurring more frequently but are also getting more difficult to detect. Within APAC, more than half of organisations on average are taking at least three hours to detect an attack and nearly as many took another three hours to respond once an attack was detected. Alarmingly, slow detection and response can lead to huge damages financially. Around half of all organisations stand to lose an average of $100,000 per hour of peak downtime during an attack. To exacerbate this, 40 percent of organisations hit were notified by their customers of the attacks. Investment is increasing The worrying figures above help explain why 90 percent of organisations are increasing their investments in DDoS defences, compared to the previous 12 months – up from 76 percent last year- despite the fact that 99 percent already have some form of protection in place. The threats faced today, and those anticipated in the future, are clearly forcing organisations to completely reconsider the ways they are currently protecting themselves. Mitigating against DDOS attacks Effectively mitigating DDoS attacks has become crucial for organisations that want to avoid damaging financial and reputational loss. In order to combat attacks, organisations need to adequately understand the threat, quantify the risk and then create a mitigation plan that corresponds to their needs. Whether it’s a large or small scale DDoS attack, to keep up with the growing threat, companies will need newer, adaptable, and scalable defences that include new technology and methodologies. Developing a mitigation plan Paying the cost for a DDoS mitigation that exceeds their requirements is like over insuring your car – you are paying a premium for a service that does not match your level of risk/potential loss. Similarly, implementing a DDoS mitigation that does not cover the risk will likely lead to additional costs, resulting from greater organisational impact and additional emergency response activities. Once the severity of the risk is understood, there are three key critical elements of producing a good mitigation plan that must be enacted: detection, response and rehearsal. Detecting an attack Fortunately, there are several technologies out there that can be used to monitor both the physical and cloud-based environment. An example is how organisations can use Netflow monitoring on border routers to detect a volumetric attack, or provide this data to a third-party for analysis and detection. They can also look at using appliances to conduct automatic detection and response, again managed internally or by a third-party. In a cloud environment, organisations can choose between a vast array of cloud monitoring tools that allow them to identify degradation and performance, CPU utilisation and latency, giving an indication as accurate as possible of when an attack occurs. Responding to an attack The response plan to the attack must be scaled to the organisation’s risk exposure and technology infrastructure. For instance, an organisation operating in the cloud with a moderate risk exposure might decide on a cloud based solution, pay-on-occurrence model. On the other hand, a financial services company that operates its own infrastructure will be exposed to more substantial financial and reputational risk. Such a company would ideally look for a hybrid solution that would provide the best time to mitigate, low latency and near immediate failover to cloud mitigation for large volumetric attacks. Rehearsal of your mitigation plan Regardless of the protection method being deployed, it’s good practice to rehearse it periodically. Periodic testing can not only eliminate gaps or issues in responding to a DDoS attack, but can also prepare the responsible owners to perform their required actions when an actual event occurs. In summary, DDoS attacks aren’t showing any signs of slowing down anytime soon. The threats associated with DDoS attacks cannot be understated or underestimated. Moreover, by quantifying the risk to the organisation and implementing a right-sized mitigation solution, organisations can effectively and efficiently mitigate the risk of DDoS attacks. Source: https://securitybrief.com.au/story/why-ddos-attacks-show-no-signs-slowing-down/
Kids these days: the 16-year-old behind 1.7 million DDoS attacks
Teenagers have typically not been known as the most motivated demographic, napping through classes and slouching through shifts at McDonald’s. While yelling at a 16-year-old four times just to get him to unload the dishwasher is annoying, consider the other end of the spectrum: the ambitious 16-year-old who earned over $500,000 USD by building a DDoS stresser responsible for 1.7 million attacks, causing millions of dollars in damages. It’s cool Brayden, you can unload the dishwasher later. Dirty dealings A successful distributed denial of service or DDoS attack is one in which a website or online service is overwhelmed by malicious traffic or requests, pushing the site or service offline so it’s unavailable to its users. DDoS attacks have been big news the last few years. Big news to website owners who have had users frustrated by downtime, to business owners who have suffered reputation damage and monetary losses, to the public at large who have been unable to use websites and services big and small because of these attacks, and big news to the media itself who have been devoting headlines to the ever-growing scourge of attacks. One of the main reasons for the increase in attacks has been DDoS for hire servers, otherwise known as booters or stressers. For as little as a few dollars, anyone with an internet connection can buy access to a service that allows them to aim a DDoS attack at the targets of their choosing. Stressers are so named because they masquerade as a legitimate tool, one that stresses a server to test its reliability. This is where Adam Mudd comes in. In the Mudd When Adam Mudd was just 16 years old he went to work on the computer in his bedroom and created what he called the Titanium Stresser. Mudd himself carried out 594 distributed denial of service attacks, including an attack against his former college, but those nearly 600 attacks were but a drop in the bucket compared to how busy his stresser got when he opened it up as a DDoS for hire service. In just over two years the Titanium Stresser racked up 112,000 registered users who launched 1.7 million DDoS attacks against 660,000 IP addresses. There were obviously many repeat targets amongst those 660,000 IP addresses, perhaps most notably the company behind the online game RuneScape which was hit 25,000 times and led to the company spending roughly $10 million in mitigation efforts. Other notable targets of the Titanium Stresser included Sony, Xbox Live, Microsoft and Team Speak. Mudd reportedly earned over $500,000 from his stresser service. It all came to an end for Mudd in March of 2015 when the police arrived at his parents’ house. Mudd refused to unlock his computer until his father intervened. He has since pleaded guilty to three charges under the United Kingdom Computer Misuse Act, and one charge of money laundering. He was sentenced to 24 months in jail. The big picture Mudd was nothing more than a teenager in the bedroom of his parents’ house, yet his stresser service caused millions of dollars in quantitative damages and untold further damages when it comes to lost productivity, lost user loyalty and lost revenue in both the short and long term. There are Adam Mudds all over the world, many more experienced, running stresser services that are just as successful as the Titanium Stresser and even more so. Further, while Mudd’s arrest and conviction is a success for law enforcement, he joins a list of recent DDoS-related arrests that include members of the famed Lizard Squad, owners of the vDos botnet, and three dozen patrons of stresser services. Hackforums, the biggest hacking forums in the world, also recently banned DDoS for hire services. All seemingly good things. Yet the number of DDoS attacks being perpetrated hasn’t gone down. When the FBI or Interpol shuts down a stresser service, another stresser service simply scoops up its customers. The lesson here has to be that DDoS attacks can be perpetrated by anyone and aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. With stresser services so affordable and accessible, almost every website on the internet is a potential target, and potentially a repeat target. Without professional DDoS protection, websites will be left picking up the pieces and paying exorbitant sums in order to do so. Source: http://www.bmmagazine.co.uk/in-business/kids-days-16-year-old-behind-1-7-million-ddos-attacks/
See the original post:
Kids these days: the 16-year-old behind 1.7 million DDoS attacks
Libertarian Site Suffers DDoS Attack After Supporting Google Worker
Quillette Magazine, a small but respected libertarian publication based in Australia, suffered a DDoS attack Tuesday after publishing an article supportive of James Damore, the fired Google memo writer. The attack, which crashed the site for a day, came after Quillette published the opinion of four scientists on the Google memo. The scientists found that the conservative Google employee’s views on gender differences were supported by substantial scientific evidence. The Google memo’s “key claims about sex differences are especially well-supported by large volumes of research across species, culture,” wrote Geoffrey Miller, a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of New Mexico, explaining that the memo “is consistent with the scientific state of the art on sex differences.” “Among commentators who claim the memo’s empirical facts are wrong, I haven’t read a single one who understand sexual selection theory, animal behavior, and sex differences research,” Miller added. Deborah Soh, who has a PhD in sexual neuroscience and works as a Toronto-based science writer, concurred with Miller. “Sex differences between women and men—when it comes to brain structure and function and associated differences in personality and occupational preferences—are understood to be true, because the evidence for them (thousands of studies) is strong.” “This is not information that’s considered controversial or up for debate; if you tried to argue otherwise, or for purely social influences, you’d be laughed at,” Soh said. Unfortunately, liberal-hacker-activists couldn’t handle the truth, and Quillette’s website took an arrow to the knee. Claire Lehmann, the founder of Quillette, told PJ Media that her website was especially susceptible to attack. While there are many programs that can be used to protect against DDoS attacks (which are when hackers flood websites with traffic to crash it), Claire said she didn’t have any. “I’m a small site and my technical skills are not at a high level, so I was unaware that I should have had these protections. Apparently they are fairly standard,” she told PJ Media. Her site, which has received endorsements from well-known figures such as Charles Murray and Richard Dawkins, has a history of publishing science-based journalism, but this is the first time they’ve suffered a DDoS attack, Lehman says. (Disclosure: I’ve written a few articles on higher education for them. Small world.) Lehmann, whose site has been dedicated to supporting alternative viewpoints since it launched in 2016, said her work is crucial to helping people see the truth behind things. “It’s important to hear alternative viewpoints so that we can work out what is the truth, and not merely consensus,” Lehmann said. “Over the past few years, both academic and media institutions have become highly conformist. And we know that groupthink leads to blindspots, which makes us unable to see what is actually true.” Source: https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/08/09/libertarian-site-suffers-ddos-attack-after-supporting-google-worker/
View the original here:
Libertarian Site Suffers DDoS Attack After Supporting Google Worker
Ukrainian Postal Service Knocked Offline By Repeated DDoS
Ukrposhta, the national postal service in Ukraine, was hit with a two-day DDoS attack that began on Monday, knocking some systems offline. According to the Interfax news agency, the computer systems targeted by the unknown assailants are used to track customer parcels and shipments. Ukrposhta is managed by the Infrastructure Ministry in Ukraine, and employs almost 12,000 postal officers across the country and 76,000 employees in all—meaning that disruptions could have far-reaching effects. The company gave DDoS updates via its Facebook page yesterday. The latest (in translation) reads: “During the first wave of the attack, which began yesterday in the morning, our IT services could normalize the situation, and after 5 p.m., all the services on the site worked properly. But today, hackers are at it again. Due to their actions, both the website and services are working, but slowly and with interruptions.” Igal Zeifman, director of marketing at Imperva for the Incapsula product line, said via email that it sounds like Ukrposhta is dealing with several repeat assaults, occurring in rapid succession. “Recently, such tactics had become more common due to their ability to disrupt some security measures and cause fatigue to the people in charge of the attack mitigation, forcing them to stay alert even in the quiet time between the attacks,” he said. “In the first quarter of the year, we saw the number of such repeat assaults reach an all-time-high, with over 74% of DDoS targets attacked at least twice in the span of that quarter.” This is not the first time that Ukraine’s postal service has faced significant attacks this year. The country was ground zero for the Petya/NotPetya ransomware attacks that proliferated around the globe in June, which affected not just the postal service but also banks and the state-owned power companies, Ukenergo and Kyivenergo. Source: https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/ukrainian-postal-service-repeated/
Read the original:
Ukrainian Postal Service Knocked Offline By Repeated DDoS