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DDoS Defense: Better Traction in Tandem?

DDoS attacks are nothing new, but they remain the nemesis of many IT departments in organizations big and small. Why? Because attacks can come from any source, use multiple protocols, leverage massive botnets and often aren’t detected until it’s too late. According to SecurityWeek, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is now developing a new kind of DDoS defense, one based on collaboration rather than isolation. But can companies really get better security traction in tandem rather than acting alone? Big Numbers, Big Problems As noted by Dark Reading, DDoS attacks “are growing in frequency, size, severity, sophistication and even persistence each year.” Since there’s no single vector for these attacks — coupled with the fact that many look like server or network failures at first glance — it’s no wonder both small companies and large enterprises are getting hit, and hit often. Consider Rutgers University: In 2015, the institution faced six separate DDoS events. Financial institutions and government organizations faced many more, both attempted and successful, because the mechanism for attacks remains simple: Malicious actors need only reliable botnets and solid connections to launch a full-scale effort. The speed and simplicity of DDoS attacks is also encouraging malicious actors to ramp up their efforts. According to BetaNews, for example, the BBC was hit with a massive attack on New Year’s Eve that — if the attackers themselves are telling the truth — reached a maximum of 602 Gbps. That’s almost double the size of the current DDoS record holder at 334 Gbps. The group responsible, called New World Hacking, also targeted Donald Trump’s website and said it had plans to go after ISIS-related sites, although it claimed the BBC attack was merely a test and not intended to bring the site down for hours. Some security pros said the group may be targeting high-profile sites in an effort to promote its in-house DDoS tool, BangStresser. Stopping Traffic With DDoS Defense With DDoS tools and hacking-as-a-service now available for purchase at virtually any Dark Web marketplace and effectively being advertised through public attacks, companies are understandably concerned. Even when caught midstream, it’s difficult to respond before servers start failing and other, more sophisticated attacks take aim at critical corporate data. As a result, dealing with DDoS has become a top priority for organizations like the DHS, which just awarded a $1.7 million contract to tech company Galois in hopes of strengthening DDoS defense. The biggest news from the announcement is the development of a new project called DDoS Defense for a Community of Peers (3DCoP), which uses a peer-to-peer mechanism that allows organizations to work together and collectively defeat DDoS attacks. The thinking here is that since many companies and institutions are often targeted by similar attacks, a coordinated response increases the chance of early detection and swift response, in turn lowering overall damage. Historically, businesses have been reluctant to share attack data or collaborate on defense for fear of giving away trade security secrets or seeming weak in comparison to other companies. The high-volume, high-impact nature of DDoS attacks, however, make this an untenable position; users don’t care about protecting company pride if the result is reduced compute performance or total server failure. If the DHS effort works as intended, however, organizations should be able to collectively tap the power of the combined whole and get better traction on DDoS defense. In other words, a steady security climb instead of spinning wheels. Source: https://securityintelligence.com/news/ddos-defense-better-traction-in-tandem/

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DDoS Defense: Better Traction in Tandem?

A DDoS Learning Curve for Universities, Government & Enterprises

Distributed Denial of Service attacks are easy, cheap and too often, effective. But they’re not unstoppable. There’s no getting around it — DDoS attacks are growing in frequency, size, severity, sophistication, and even persistence each year. These tenacious, effective attacks can last anywhere from hours to months. They can be launched from botnets, use multiple protocols, and even disguise themselves with SSL encryption. Protecting yourself against DDoS isn’t a matter of stopping one attack but a multitude, sometimes all at once. Even worse, IT departments may not realize an attack is underway, thinking a failing server or application is responsible. Rutgers University, for example, recently fell prey to its sixth known DDoS attack in a single year — and Rutgers is not an outlier. Thousands of DDoS attacks hit universities, enterprises, government organizations, and banks every day—some successful, some not. One thing is for sure: no one is safe, and attacks will continue because DDoS attacks are easy, cheap and, too often, effective. But they’re not unstoppable. Universities and other organizations can take steps to prepare for and minimize the effect of even the most sophisticated assaults: Step 1. Have a good monitoring system in place Security teams have many ways to get insight into their network, including flow sampling, in-path detection and mirrored data packets. Here’s a brief breakdown of the pluses and minuses: Flow sampling: The router samples packets and exports datagrams on them. While scalable, this method leaves out large quantities of information because it only samples one packet out of thousands. This allows some “slow and low” attacks to fly under the detection radar, or take a long time to trigger an alert. In-path detection: A high-performance DDoS mitigation device continuously processes all incoming traffic and possibly outgoing traffic. The device can take immediate action with sub-second mitigation times. One concern is ensuring the mitigation solution can scale with the uplink capacity during multi-vector attacks. Mirrored data packets: Full detail for analysis is provided, while not necessarily in the path of traffic. This method can be a challenge to set up, but allows for fast detection of anomalies in traffic and is a centralized place for analysis and mitigation. Step 2. Keep an eye on performance metrics and scalability When it comes to DDoS, everything happens on a large scale: the number of attacking computers, the bandwidth they consume and the connections they generate. To fight back, organizations need a combination of high-performance, purpose-built hardware that can mitigate common, yet large-scale attacks effectively, and intelligent software that can inspect traffic at the highest packet rates. For instance, an effective combination might include leveraging dedicated network traffic processors (e.g. FPGAs) to handle the common network-layer attack in combination with powerful, multi-core CPUs to mitigate more complex application-layer attacks. What’s key here is to ensure there is enough processing headroom to prepare networks for future generations of DDoS attacks. Step 3. Invest in a security awareness program Mitigation of next-generation DDoS attacks starts with training — especially to recognize normal network behavior and spot anomalies. For instance, companies that have started their migration to IPv6 must have security specialists in place that know IPv6 well enough to recognize attacks when they happen, and then to know how to use available tools to properly fight them off. Proper training allows organizations to be proactive versus reactive. Security policies take time to devise, so universities and other organizations shouldn’t wait for the IT support staff to raise a red flag before they decide to take action. Source: http://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/a-ddos-learning-curve-for-universities-government-and-enterprises-/a/d-id/1323879

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A DDoS Learning Curve for Universities, Government & Enterprises

Minnesota Courts Website Target Of DDoS Attacks

A week after the Minnesota courts website was completely shut down for 10 days in December, we’re finally finding out why. The Minnesota Judicial Branch says its website was the target of two distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. In a DDoS attack, a website or server is overwhelmed with network traffic until it can no longer function for legitimate users. The MJB says the attacks in December left their site unusable to members of the public for several hours, and was eventually completely shut down from Dec. 21 to 31 in order to install additional safeguards. Officials say no personal data was breached as a result of the attack — DDoS attacks are typically used to sabotage a website or server , rather than steal information. Authorities say initial forensics show the attacks were primarily launched from servers in Asia and Canada, and international authorities are investigating. Source: http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2016/01/08/minnesota-courts-website-target-of-ddos-attacks/

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Minnesota Courts Website Target Of DDoS Attacks

DDoS attack on BBC may have been biggest in history

Last week’s distributed denial of service attack against the BBC website may have been the largest in history. A group calling itself New World Hacking said that the attack reached 602Gbps. If accurate, that would put it at almost twice the size of the previous record of 334Gbps, recorded by Arbor Networks last year. “Some of this information still needs to be confirmed,” said Paul Nicholson, director of product marketing at A10 Networks, a security vendor that helps protect companies against DDoS attacks. “If it’s proven, it would be the largest attack on record. But it depends on whether it’s actually confirmed, because it’s still a relatively recent attack.” According to Nicholson, it sometimes happens that people who step forward and take credit for attacks turn out to be exaggerating. New World Hacking also said that the attack, which came on New Year’s Eve, was “only a test.” “We didn’t exactly plan to take it down for multiple hours,” the group told the BBC. New World Hacking also hit Donald Trump’s campaign website the same day, and said its main focus was to take down ISIS-affiliated websites. It’s common for hackers to go after high-profile media websites, but attacks against political websites are increasingly likely to be in the spotlight this year because of the U.S. election cycle, according to Raytheon|Websense CEO John McCormack. “The U.S. elections cycle will drive significant themed attacks,” he said. “This is just the beginning and it will get worse — and more personal — as candidates see their campaign apps hacked, Twitter feeds hijacked, and voters are targeted with very specific phishing attacks based on public data such as voter registration, Facebook and LinkedIn.” One possible reason to conduct a DDoS attack against a high-profile target such as the BBC or Donald Trump is marketing, said A10 Networks’ Nicholson. It seems that New World Hacking may be affiliated with an online DDoS tool called BangStresser, which delivers attacks as a service. Last year, a similar group, the Lizard Squad, conducted a marketing campaign for their DDoS service, the Lizard Stressor. “There are a lot of parallels here,” said A10 Networks’ product marketing manager Rene Paap. These services typically leverage botnets or use stolen payment cards to rent cloud-based servers, he said. Typically, the rented servers are used to run command and control servers. What’s unusual about New World Hacking is that they’re claiming to be using Amazon servers to generate actual attack bandwidth. “That is something new,” said Paap. “But it hasn’t been confirmed or denied yet.” Not all DDoS attack services are illegal, said Nicholson. “Some are offered as useful services to websites, to see if they can handle the load,” he said. Others fall squarely into the gray area, allowing cyber-terrorists, extortionists and digital vandals to launch attacks for a few hundred dollars each. “Some of them are quite inexpensive and configurable,” Nicholson said. “for example, you can have different attacks at different times, so that it’s harder to defend against them.” To protect themselves, Nicholson recommends that companies deploy a combination of on-premises and cloud-based solutions to handle attacks of varying types and sizes. “You need to be able to detect what’s going on, that there’s actually an attack,” he said. “And once you detect an attack, you need to be able to mitigate it as long as possible.” According to security vendor Netcraft, service to the BBC network was restored by using the Akamai content delivery network. Akamai declined to comment about this particular case. “As policy, the company isn’t commenting on specific situations,” said a spokesperson. Source: http://www.csoonline.com/article/3020292/cyber-attacks-espionage/ddos-attack-on-bbc-may-have-been-biggest-in-history.html

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DDoS attack on BBC may have been biggest in history

Bitcoin exchange BTCC stands firm against DDoS ransom hacker and wins

Bitcoin exchange BTCC Technology Ltd. had an interesting time over the new year when it was targeted by a Bitcoin-for-DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack, but in a great story we don’t see often enough, the company held steady and won, complete with a hilarious ending. The company first came under DDoS attack on December 31 when they received an email from an unknown source demanding they pay 1 Bitcoin ($430) in ransom or the attacks would escalate. Having ignored the demand, on New Years Day BTCC was targeted with a 10 Gbps DDoS attack, the strength of which was not expected by the company’s DDoS mitigation service. According to a post on Reddit, the DDoS protection provider said something along the lines of “This thing is huge! You guys aren’t paying us enough for this!” so BTCC paid them more, and the site stayed up. Naturally, as these things go, the second attack was followed by a new ransom demand by the hacker, who was now asking for a payment of 10 Bitcoin ($4300) to prevent a further attack. Instead of paying, BTCC just battened down the hatches waiting for the next attack. Another, more intense DDoS attack of several hours then followed, causing BTCC’s servers to experience some performance issues, including a partial loss of functionality. BTCC still refused to pay the ransom and instead upgraded their servers to cope even better with the increasing attacks. Another ransom email demand was received, with demand for payment of 30 Bitcoins ($12924) with the hacker adding ““We will keep these attacks up until you pay!…. You had better pay up before you go bankrupt! Mwa ha ha!” BTCC once again ignored the demand, and the attacks recommenced, complete with more demands for Bitcoin. At this point BTCC had ramped up their mitigation efforts so much that no matter how much traffic the hacker sent it didn’t affect their service at all, to the point that the company stopped noticing many of the attacks as they usually failed to disrupt their networks for more than a few minutes after the upgrades they rolled out. Winning Around this point, despite his or hers best efforts and multiple demands, the hacker gave up trying to take the site down, but not before sending one last, hilarious plea to BTCC. “Hey, guys, look, I’m really a nice person. I don’t want to put you all out of business. What do you say we just make it 0.5 BTC and call it even?” This email was, like those before it, ignored by BTCC, which resulted in one final email from the now disgruntled, losing hacker: “Do you even speak English?” and that was that. Although DDoS attacks are serious business and not every company has the capacity to put into place defensive measures, sometimes a story just makes you want to smile. BTCC 1 vs hacker 0. Source: http://siliconangle.com/blog/2016/01/06/great-story-bitcoin-exchange-btcc-stands-firm-against-ddos-ransom-hacker-and-wins/

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Bitcoin exchange BTCC stands firm against DDoS ransom hacker and wins

DDoS gang takes down BBC websites, Donald Trump’s campaign site over holiday weekend

A group of computer criminals used two separate distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to bring down all of the BBC’s websites and Donald Trump’s main campaign site over this past holiday weekend. The story begins on New Year’s Eve, when all BBC sites, including its iPlayer service, went dark for three hours. At the time, the UK-based news organization reported that the outage was the result of a “technical issue”. It later stated that a group calling themselves the “New World Hackers” had claimed credit for launching a DDoS attack against the broadcaster, as a “test of its capabilities” Since then, one of the group’s members who identified himself as “Ownz” took the opportunity to send a screenshot to ZDNet of the web interface that was used to attack the BBC. If the screenshot is legitimate, the group allegedly employed their own tool called BangStresser to launch an attack of up to 602 Gbps – a volume of traffic that well-surpasses the largest attack on record at 334 Gbps, as documented by Arbor Networks in the middle of year. Not untypically, BangStresser is itself protected from DDoS attacks by CloudFlare – one of the popular DDoS mitigation services often deployed by websites keen to protect themselves from attackers. The attack apparently made use of two Amazon Web Services servers, but managed to skirt around the company’s automated misuse detection systems as Ownz explained in an interview with ZDNet : “We have our ways of bypassing Amazon. The best way to describe it is we tap into a few administrative services that Amazon is use to using. The [sic] simply set our bandwidth limit as unlimited and program our own scripts to hide it.” No other information has yet been provided about the attack. But whatever else transpired, the group was sufficiently pleased that they decided to use BangStresser to launch a DDoS against Donald Trump’s official campaign website, donaldjtrump.com, just a few days later. According to Softpedia , Trump’s website went down immediately on Saturday, January 2 and remained dark for several hours until DDoS mitigation solutions were put in place. The attacks, however, remained ongoing throughout the day against mail.trump.com domain, the Trump Organization’s Webmail service. Trump’s camp has yet to officially address the incident. A statement posted on Saturday by Trump’s campaign advisers (and redistributed via HackRead ) attributed the downage to “an unusually high volume of traffic” only. On Monday, Real Forums sat down with members of the group to inquire about their New Year’s exploits. Here’s what they had to say: “Our reasons behind the BBC attack was just a test of our capabilities. Although, the Trump site was the target. He can be very racist. We didn’t mean to cause as much damage as we did to BBC, but for Trump, Yes.” The group goes on to state that it plans to launch additional DDoS attacks against Trump and other large organizations like the BBC . The group also specifically mentions ISIS and the Ku Klux Klan as future targets. We’re not a week into 2016, and we’ve already witnessed DDoS attacks that have succeeded in taking down the websites of major news organizations and U.S. political candidates. It just goes to show that while malware is on the rise, DDoS attacks are not going anywhere in the New Year. As we all get back to work, we should therefore take the time to make sure our enterprises have the necessary DDoS mitigation technologies in place. Source: https://www.grahamcluley.com/2016/01/ddos-gang-takes-bbc-websites-donald-trumps-campaign-site-holiday-weekend/

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DDoS gang takes down BBC websites, Donald Trump’s campaign site over holiday weekend

2016 will see the rise of DDoS-as-a-service

We’ve already seen a big increase in DDoS attacks in the past year and according to the latest predictions these are set to continue and become more sinister in nature as we move into 2016. Security specialist Corero foresees a rise in ‘Dark DDoS’ attacks used as various smokescreens to distract victims while other attacks infiltrate corporate networks to steal sensitive data. Dave Larson, COO at Corero Network Security, says, “The highly sophisticated, adaptive and powerful Dark DDoS attack will grow exponentially next year as criminals build on their previous successes of using DDoS attacks as a distraction technique. The Carphone Warehouse attack in August was interesting because it was one of the first publicly reported cases of Dark DDoS in the public domain. This is a new frontier for DDoS attacks and a growing threat for any Internet-connected business that is housing sensitive data, such as credit card details or other personally identifiable information”. It also predicts a rise in DDoS-as-a-service cyber crime business models, where it’s possible to pay to have victims hit for as little as $6.00 per month. This means less sophisticated cyber crime actors can readily become DDoS adversaries. During October 2015, 10 percent of Corero’s customer base was faced with extortion attempts, which threatened to take down or to continue an attack on their websites unless a ransom demand was paid. If the volume of DDoS attacks continues to grow at the current rate of 32 percent per quarter, according to Corero’s latest Trends and Analysis Report, the volume of Bitcoin ransom demands could triple to 30 percent by the same time next year. Corero also anticipates 2016 will see ISPs come under pressure to provide DDoS mitigation services to their customers. In a survey conducted this autumn, Corero revealed that three quarters of enterprise customers would like their ISP to provide additional security services to eliminate DDoS traffic from entering their networks. “The current status quo allows malicious traffic carrying DDoS threats to flow freely over most provider networks,” says Larson. “As a result, most customers end up paying their provider for bandwidth that delivers potentially dangerous Internet content. But the technology exists for ISPs to turn this problem into a business opportunity. By providing DDoS mitigation tools as a service, deployed at the Internet edge, they can defeat this problem before it enters their customers’ networks”. Source: http://betanews.com/2015/12/28/2016-will-see-the-rise-of-ddos-as-a-service/

Moonfruit takes down thousands of sites after a DDoS attack

Moonfruit, a free website builder, has taken thousands of business and personal websites offline following a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. The company’s users are disappointed by the slow pace at which it has communicated the problem, and the way it’s being handled. The company said it had been threatened with a cyber-attack and had decided to make its customers’ websites unavailable for “up to 12 hours” to make infrastructure changes. In a statement on the Moonfruit website it was said that the company was actually attacked by a hacker group called the Armada Collective, which DDoSed the site for about 45 mintes. One business owner told the BBC it was “very bad timing”. Film-maker Reece de Ville said: “They have been slow to communicate via their website what is going on.” “I’m going to have hundreds of people finding my site today but not being able to access it. I could be losing out on a lot of money from potential clients, and they may not come back if they think the company has gone. It’s incredibly bad timing, especially for businesses selling Christmas cards and gifts on their website.” In an email to its customers, the company apologised for giving them “short notice” that their websites would be offline. “We have been working with law enforcement agencies regarding this matter and have spared no time or expense in ensuring we complete the work as quickly as possible,” the company’s director, Matt Casey, said in the official statement. Industry reaction Ron Symons, regional director at cyber security specialist A10 Networks said: “Moonfruit has responded in the best possible way to this threat by taking its services offline. As the attack it suffered last week shows, distributed denial of service (DDoS) is extremely difficult to prevent. More worryingly, DDoS attacks frequently act as smokescreens hiding more invasive attacks as hackers exploit unguarded system backdoors to steal sensitive data. “By making this bold decision to pre-empt another incident, Moonfruit stands a much better chance of protecting its clients’ private data. The shutdown may be inconvenient now, but by ensuring its infrastructure is equipped to deal with today’s increasingly powerful cyber attacks Moonfruit is acting in the best interests of those using its services.” SEE ALSO: Throwback Thursday: Why Apple is called Apple Dave Larson, Chief Operating Officer at Corero Network Security said: “Unfortunately, the sheer size and scale of hosting or data center operator network infrastructures and their massive customer base presents an incredibly attractive attack surface due to the multiple entry points and significant aggregate bandwidth that acts as a conduit for a damaging and disruptive DDoS attack. “As enterprises of all sizes increasingly rely on hosted critical infrastructure or services, they are placing themselves at even greater risk from these devastating DDoS attacks – even as an indirect target.” Source: http://www.itproportal.com/2015/12/14/moonfruit-takes-down-thousands-of-sites-after-a-ddos-attack/#ixzz3uLEOSJCP

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Moonfruit takes down thousands of sites after a DDoS attack

Cyber criminals not to blame for all DDoS attacks, study shows

There is a real concern that many companies are being affected by the DDoS attacks commissioned by competitors, according to Kaspersky Lab Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are associated with criminal activity, but not all those behind DDoS attacks are cyber criminals, research has revealed. Nearly half of more than 5,500 companies polled in 26 countries claimed to know the identity and motivation behind recent DDoS attacks, and 12% named competitors as the most likely culprits. This suspicion increases in the business services industry, with 38% of respondents in this sector believing their competitors were behind a DDoS attack, according to a survey by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International. However, 18% attributed recent DDoS attacks to criminals seeking to disrupt or distract while another attack took place; 17% to criminals seeking to disrupt their services for a ransom; 11% to political activists; and 5% to state-sponsored activities. The most popular motivation for the attacks is believed to be a ransom, cited by 27% of respondents in the manufacturing and telecoms sectors. “DDoS attacks are no longer just about cyber criminals seeking to halt a company’s operations,” said Evgeny Vigovsky, head of DDoS protection at Kaspersky Lab. “Businesses are becoming suspicious of each other, and there is a real concern that many companies – including small and medium ones – are being affected by the underhanded tactics of their competitors, which are commissioning DDoS attacks directly against them, damaging their operations and reputation,” he said. In the light of this trend, Vigovsky said all businesses should remain vigilant and fully understand the repercussions of a DDoS attack in terms of the potential financial and reputational damage. “It is wise not to pay a ransom, or to fall victim to cyber criminals or competitors. Ensure that you have the appropriate security measures in place to help manage the increased risk posed to your business from DDoS attacks,” he said. Looking ahead to 2016, security firms expect to see an increase in the tactic of using DDoS attacks to distract companies from other, more damaging malicious activity on their networks, such as data theft. The use of DDoS, or the threat of DDoS attacks, as a way of extorting money is also expected to continue and increase in the coming year. According to the study, 20% of companies with 50 employees or more reported that they have been the victim of at least one DDoS attack, with companies in the telecoms, financial services and IT sectors the most likely to be targeted. The study also revealed that 50% of DDoS attacks led to a noticeable disruption of services; 26% led to the loss of sensitive data; 24% led to services being completely unavailable; and 74% led to a noticeable disruption of service, which coincided with a different type of security incident, such as a malware attack, network intrusion or other type of attack. According to Kaspersky Lab, the average cost for recovering from a DDoS attack for companies of more than 1,500 employees is $417,000, and $53,000 for small and medium businesses (SMBs). Yet 56% of those polled thought that spending money to prevent or mitigate DDoS attacks in future would be worth the investment, 53% said their organisation knew how to mitigate or prevent DDoS attacks, and only 52% felt well-informed about DDoS attacks. Despite the cost and complexity of dealing with DDoS attacks, the Kaspersky Lab research said the average financial damage of a DDoS attack is significant, especially for SMBs, and is definitely higher than the cost of a service designed to reduce the effect of such attacks. “DDoS prevention is almost always a third-party service, and outsourcing this trouble to experts not only reduces the damage but also frees up IT personnel to deal with a probable complementary attack on a company infrastructure, which will have much worse consequences,” the report said. Source: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500260544/Cyber-criminals-not-to-blame-for-all-DDoS-attacks-study-shows

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Cyber criminals not to blame for all DDoS attacks, study shows

Sputnik Türkiey website became the target of a DDoS attack

Access to the site was blocked for an hour due to a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack carried out by unknown perpetrator(s). The website’s IT specialists managed to quickly deal with the attack and Sputnik Türkiye has already resumed operations. The resources of Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, including the Sputnik website and newswire, had already become a target for a major DDoS attack in October, when the agency’s websites and mailing services were unavailable to users for two hours. DDoS attacks are caused by a large number of Internet users or software programs simultaneously sending requests to a website until it exceeds its capacity to handle Internet traffic. Source: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151208/1031410680/sputnik-turkey-ddos-attack.html

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Sputnik Türkiey website became the target of a DDoS attack