Tag Archives: security

DDoS attacks continue to escalate in both size and frequency

Arbor Networks released global DDoS attack data for the first six months of 2016 that shows a continuing escalation in the both the size and frequency of attacks. Arbor’s data is gathered through ATLAS, a collaborative partnership with more than 330 service provider customers who share anonymous traffic data with Arbor in order to deliver an aggregated view of global traffic and threats. ATLAS data has also been utilized recently in Cisco’s Visual Networking Index … More ?

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DDoS attacks continue to escalate in both size and frequency

Whitepaper: Does your DDoS protection strategy address the changing threat landscape?

When it comes to DDoS attacks, you need a protection strategy that quickly adapts to the increasing sophistication of today’s attackers and the other current changes and trends in the DDoS threat landscape. Find out: What are the newest trends in Network and Applicative DDoS attacks What are the implications on your DDoS protection strategy How Incapsula’s DDoS Protection service addresses the new protection requirements. DDoS Downtime Calculator Incapsula’s DDoS Downtime Calculator is designed to … More ?

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Whitepaper: Does your DDoS protection strategy address the changing threat landscape?

Mike McNeill’s Diary for Monday, July 11, 2016: Fighting off the DDoS

magnoliareporter.com experienced some technical issues on Friday. Our website is hosted by a service known as TownNews.com , which hosts and provides technical assistance to thousands of media-oriented websites across the country. TownNews.com was hit by a directed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Friday afternoon. This mainly manifested itself by making it difficult for us — and hundreds of other websites — to access our servers and make changes. People may have had difficulty accessing our website during that time. We do not think that our thousands of daily visitors have anything to worry about as TownNews.com technology responded immediately. That said, it is probably a good thing that we are not president of the United States. To us, hackers present a clear and present danger to the security of the United States, which has our permission to deal with them with extreme prejudice. North Korea is bent out of shape over the pending deployment by South Korea of the U.S.-made Terminal High Altitude Defense System, or THAAD. THAAD launchers and fire control systems are made in East Camden. North Korea’s military said in a statement that, “There will be physical response measures from us as soon as the location and time that the invasionary tool for U.S. world supremacy, THAAD, will be brought into South Korea are confirmed. It is the unwavering will of our army to deal a ruthless retaliatory strike and turn (the South) into a sea of fire and a pile of ashes the moment we have an order to carry it out.” Ohhhhhhh. We’re scared. Seriously, how many submarines, cruisers, aircraft carriers, bombers and drones are circling offshore North Korea, ready to unleash hell at any given moment? And that’s just the U.S. military. That sea of fire and pile of ashes looks a lot like future downtown Pyougyang to us. The Magnolia School District website is having a makeover. We’ll let you know when the site is up and running. Looking for more widely spread drought conditions when the new report comes out later this week. We’re expecting more abnormally dry conditions in South Arkansas. Patrick Posey died Saturday at his home near Benton, LA. Posey and his wife, Susan, performed much of the mural restoration work around the square a few years ago. Some fool vandalized highway signs in the Walkerville area on during the weekend, but the hate speech written on them was cleaned up. Our new online poll asks for your opinion about the state of race relations in Columbia County – whether they are better, worse or about the same as a decade ago. Another question might be what each of us, as individuals, is doing to make things better. Five years ago, we reported that Walkerville Cumberland Presbyterian Church was dedicating a new manse. A year ago, we reported that Betsy Production was drilling an oil well on the SAU campus. Vice President Aaron Burr shot and mortally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel on this date in 1804. Author E.B. White was born on this date in 1899. George Gershwin died on this date in 1937. Source: http://www.magnoliareporter.com/news_and_business/mike_mcneills_diary/article_733b45f8-4720-11e6-9e2d-97f7f136ad46.html

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Mike McNeill’s Diary for Monday, July 11, 2016: Fighting off the DDoS

Ransomware: Can we finally start learning from past mistakes?

There is a phrase I am finding quite relevant lately. It is attributed to the philosopher George Santayana and it goes like this: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The reason it comes to my mind a lot these days is the headlines we are seeing relating to the latest ransomware attacks against companies’, hospitals’ and government departments’ systems. Previous headlines highlighted how criminals used DDoS attacks to extort money … More ?

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Ransomware: Can we finally start learning from past mistakes?

WikiLeaks’ website was taken offline with a DDoS attack amid an ongoing hacker feud.

As a long-time feud between rival hacking groups boiled over, the WikiLeaks website was caught in the crossfire and brought offline by a distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on 5 June. However, rather than react with anger, leaked chat logs show how WikiLeaks’ Twitter account engaged the group responsible, called OurMine, and even offered hacking tips for the future. Direct messages leaked to Buzzfeed show how WikiLeaks’ account, rumoured to be helmed by the website’s founder Julian Assange, told the group – which has become known for hacking the online profiles of high-profile figures – their talents could be put to better use. OurMine has recently hacked a slew of celebrities and technology executives including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Spotify founder Daniel Ek. Every time, they leave a message telling the victim how weak their security is and leave a link to their website. Indeed the group claims to be a security firm rather than a hacking outfit. In any case, as far as ‘hacks’ go, OurMine’s activity is fairly tame. Until WikiLeaks’ website was taken down – thanks to an ongoing head-to-head with the Anonymous collective – there was little real damage caused to victims other than embarrassment. The DDoS attack took down the famous whistleblowing website by sending waves of traffic towards its servers, a common tactic used in hacktivist circles as a means of protest. After the incident, WikiLeaks got in touch and said the group was wasting its time by not making the most of the chances received by infiltrating profiles of the rich and famous. “If you support us and want to show you’re skills, then don’t waste your time with DDoS etc,” the account wrote. “Find us interesting mail spools or docs and send them to [WikiLeaks]. That’ll have a much greater impact.” After OurMine replied with “We never change their passwords we are just testing their accounts’ security” WikiLeaks said it was a “huge waste.” The message continued: “There’s a lot more than (sic) could have been done with those accounts. Sending DM’s as Zuckerberg to further access elsewhere. Same with Google CEO. You could have used these accounts to gain access to much more significant information, revealing corrupt behaviour elsewhere.” Based on the chats, OurMine appeared to agree with the new direction. “Great idea,” it said. One the hackers, speaking with Wired, previously said: “We don’t need money, but we are selling security services because there is a lot [of] people [who] want to check their security. We are not blackhat hackers, we are just a security group…we are just trying to tell people that nobody is safe.” Source: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/wikileaks-tells-ourmine-hackers-impersonate-high-profile-victims-reveal-corrupt-behaviour-1569499

EasyDoc malware adds Tor backdoor to Macs for botnet control

Smugness levels cut among Apple fanbois Security firm Bitdefender has issued an alert about a malicious app that hands over control of Macs to criminals via Tor.…

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EasyDoc malware adds Tor backdoor to Macs for botnet control

The Network Ops DDoS Playbook

With the prevalence of DDoS attacks, good preparation and planning can go a long way toward making the DDoS response process as manageable, painless, and inexpensive as possible. The Network Ops DDoS Playbook is a guide focused on how to prepare yourself against a DDoS attack on your business and what to do if you are under attack. You’ll find practical tips, best practices and an overview of the cyber security technologies available to protect … More ?

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The Network Ops DDoS Playbook

25,000-strong CCTV botnet used for crippling DDoS attacks

A DDoS attack against a jewelry shop website has lead researchers to the discovery of a CCTV botnet comprised of some 25,000 cameras from around the globe. The website had been repeatedly attacked, first with 35,000 HTTP requests per second and then, when those efforts were thwarted, with 50,000 HTTP requests per second. Looking into the IP addresses from which the attack was coming from, Sucuri researchers discovered that all of them were running the … More ?

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25,000-strong CCTV botnet used for crippling DDoS attacks

Botnet-powered ballot stuffing suspected in 2nd referendum petition

‘Tiny fraction of the overall count’ however A petition for a second EU referendum in the UK has been hit by suspicions of computer automated ballot stuffing, possibly by politically motivated hackers.…

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Botnet-powered ballot stuffing suspected in 2nd referendum petition

Botnet-powered account takeover campaign hit unnamed bank

A single attacker has mounted two massive account takeover (ATO) campaigns against a financial institution and an entertainment company earlier this year, and used a gigantic botnet comprised of home routers and other networking products to do it. “ATO attacks (also known as credential stuffing) use previously breached username and password pairs to automate login attempts. This data may have been previously released on public dumpsites such as Pastebin or directly obtained by attackers through … More ?

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Botnet-powered account takeover campaign hit unnamed bank