How to abuse Facebook feature to conduct powerful DDoS attack

A researcher discovered a flaw in the section “notes” of the social network Facebook that could be exploited by anyone to conduct a powerful DDoS attack. The Security researcher Chaman Thapa, also known as chr13, discovered a vulnerability in the   section ‘Notes’ of the popular social network Facebook that could be exploited by anyone to launch the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack of more than 800 Mbps Bandwidth on any website. Chaman Thapa demonstrated that simply reading a ‘Note’ created by anyone on the Facebook platform an attacker could automatically generate malicious traffic against a target. The researcher published a blog post to describe the vulnerability, he exploited the possibility to include  tags inside the post to allow the creation of notes that have images from any source. The attack scenario is very simple, Facebook downloads external images from the original source for the first time only, to improve the performance it stores them in the cache for successive uses. If the image url has dynamic parameters, Facebook is not able to store the image in cache and practically it download all the images included in a note each time whenever anybody view the note. “Facebook Notes allows users to include tags. Whenever a tag is used, Facebook crawls the image from the external server and caches it. Facebook will only cache the image once however using random get parameters the cache can be by-passed and the feature can be abused to cause a huge HTTP GET flood.” Let’s see the DDoS attack scenario described by Chaman Thapa, let’s chose the target website “ target.com”  which include a large image on its server (e.g. 1Mb).  The researcher creates a  Facebook Note  which includes the above image multiple times with dynamic parameters, and some text. Facebook servers are forced to download 1 MB  of file 1000 times in one page view (It has been estimated that each note is now responsible for 1000+ http requests).  If 100 Facebook users are reading the same note at the same time, then Facebook servers will be forced to download  1 x 1000 x 100 = 100,000 Mb or 97.65Gb  bandwidth within few seconds from the targeted servers. In the image below is reported the graph for the 400 Mbps traffic generated from 127 Facebook servers in the proof-of-concept made by Thapa by attacking on his own web server. Following the description provided in the post by the Chaman Thapa. Steps to re-create the bug as reported to Facebook Bug Bounty on March 03, 2014. Step 1. Create a list of unique img tags as one tag is crawled only once .. Step 2. Use m.facebook.com to create the notes. It silently truncates the notes to a fixed length. Step 3. Create several notes from the same user or different user. Each note is now responsible for 1000+ http request. Step 4. View all the notes at the same time. The target server is observed to have massive http get flood. Thousands of get request are sent to a single server in a couple of seconds. Total number of facebook servers accessing in parallel is 100+. The researcher explained that the amplification factor of the DDoS attack depends on the dimension of the image downloaded, it could be even higher if the attacker includes in the note a pdf or a video. “A scenario of traffic amplification: when the image is replaced by a pdf or video of larger size, Facebook would crawl a huge file but the user gets nothing.” “Each Note supports 1000+ links and Facebook blocks a user after creating around 100 Notes in a short span. Since there is no captcha for note creation, all of this can be automated and an attacker could easily prepare hundreds of notes using multiple users until the time of attack when all of them is viewed at once.” noted Chaman Thapa. There is the concrete risk that a bad actor creates hundreds of notes with specially crafted script using multiple users at the same time, resulting a powerful DDoS attack. The alarming news is that the flaw is still unpached and Facebook has no plans to fix it. “ In the end, the conclusion is that there’s no real way to us fix this that would stop attacks against small consumer grade sites without also significantly degrading the overall functionality, ” replied Facebook to the researcher. Click here to read the entire article. Source: http://www.arie.co.za/how-to-abuse-facebook-feature-to-conduct-powerful-ddos-attack/

Follow this link:
How to abuse Facebook feature to conduct powerful DDoS attack

Researcher reveals how Facebook Notes can be used to DDoS sites

A programmer has divulged how the Facebook Notes feature can be used to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against websites. In a blog post this weekend, researcher Chaman Thapa said that the DDoS abuse is possible due to Facebook’s protocol of allowing HMTL image tags in notes. “Facebook Notes allows users to include tags,” Thapa wrote in the Sunday blog post. “Whenever a tag is used, Facebook crawls the image from the external server and caches it. Facebook will only cache the image once, however, [and by] using random GET parameters the cache can be bypassed and the feature can be abused to cause a huge HTTP GET flood.” By creating a list of unique image tags, and using m.facebook.com to create notes, Thapa was able to create several notes, which were each responsible for sending an influx of HTTP request to the target server, he wrote. In only a couple of seconds, he was able to send thousands of GET requests to the designated server. Thapa disclosed the issue to Facebook’s bug bounty program on March 3, but after being alerted to the issue, the company ultimately said that the attack scenario was “interesting/creative,” – but one the company didn’t intend to fix due to the logistics involved. Thapa posted the email correspondence with Facebook (which occurred April 11) in his blog post. “In the end, the conclusion is that there’s no real way to us fix this that would stop ‘attacks’ against small consumer grade sites without also significantly degrading the overall functionality,” Facebook told Thapa. “Unfortunately, so-called ‘won’t fix’ items aren’t eligible under the bug bounty program, so there won’t be a reward for this issue. I want to acknowledge, however, both that I think your proposed attack is interesting/creative and that you clearly put a lot of work into researching and reporting the issue last month. That IS appreciated and we do hope that you’ll continue to submit any future security issues you find to the Facebook bug bounty program.” In a Friday email to SCMagazine.com, a Facebook spokesperson further explained the company’s decision on addressing the bug. “Ultimately, we decided against making changes to avoid disrupting intended and desirable functions,” the spokesperson wrote. Via his blog, Thapa also revealed that similar DDoS abuse can be carried out using Google’s Feedfetcher tool. According to a Google support page, Feedfetcher allows Google to grab RSS or Atom feeds when users add them to their Google homepage or Google Reader. Source: http://www.scmagazine.com/researcher-reveals-how-facebook-notes-can-be-used-to-ddos-sites/article/344271/

Continue Reading:
Researcher reveals how Facebook Notes can be used to DDoS sites

Innocent surfers drafted into ZOMBIE ARMY by sneaky XSS vuln

Javascript snafu turned 22,000 bods into unwitting DDoSers Visitors to a video distribution website were unwittingly turned into participants in a hacker’s DDoS battle against a third-party site earlier this month.…

Link:
Innocent surfers drafted into ZOMBIE ARMY by sneaky XSS vuln

UK webhost 123-Reg in DDOS attack

Businesses using 123-Reg’s web hosting service were knocked offline on Wednesday evening following a reported distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. 123-Reg is the UK’s largest domain provider hosting over 1.4 million websites. The company said it was hit by a DDoS style attack that caused disruption to some customers on its shared hosting packages. DDoS attacks typically use a botnet of computers in a co-ordinated attack, driving web traffic to a particular website. The attack appeared to cause patchy service for websites hosted by the company for several hours with many customers taking to Twitter to vent their frustration. UK games and mobile apps start-up Greedy Goblin Games (@GreedyGoblins) tweeted 123-Reg: “It appears your shared hosting servers are down. Can access FTP but not websites”. While IT consultant @thepaulturvey tweeted: “Is there a problem with 123-Reg shared hosting? Multiple sites not responding”. 123-Reg support staff told one UK website owner: “There has been a DDOS type of attack targeting a website from our shared hosting platform which unfortunately affected some of our customers. Our system administrators have contained the attack and the connectivity issues should shortly be resolved”. Update: I’ve received the following statement from 123-Reg confirming the attack. 123-Reg did experience a DDoS attack targeted against one particular customer domain. It was a sustained attack which we monitored closely over the course of several hours. The attack itself was from 823 different IP addresses globally. This resulted in denigrated service to our hosting platform, meaning some customer sites were running slower, but no sites were taken offline as a result of this attack. Customer impact measured in terms of support queries was minimal — and likewise our social platforms saw a handful of comments — which are being addressed on a one to one basis via our support teams. Source: http://betanews.com/2014/04/23/uk-webhost-123-reg-in-ddos-attack/

Read this article:
UK webhost 123-Reg in DDOS attack

DrDoS attacks to reach 800 Gbps in 2015

While the network time protocol (NTP) DrDoS threats that became prevalent in early 2014 have been contained, new distributed reflected denial of service threats will lead to attacks in excess of 800 G…

Read More:
DrDoS attacks to reach 800 Gbps in 2015

DOSarrest Releases Latest Generation DDoS Mitigation System Software

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA–(Marketwired – Apr 23, 2014) – DOSarrest has just released its latest generation of proprietary backend software that incorporates an all-new customer-facing portal. This new release will enable DOSarrest to implement changes to customer configurations in seconds, enabling them to apply custom made DDoS mitigation modules extremely quickly. It is also equipped with an Intrusion Detection System (IDS), allowing the security team to pinpoint sophisticated layer 7 attacks as well as provide cloud based Web Application Firewall (WAF) services for its customers. Mark Teolis, GM at DOSarrest said: “This upgrade is by far our largest project to date, it has taken us over 2 years of development and testing to get here. This latest generation of software is extremely powerful, and can stop the next generation of sophisticated layer 7 attacks.” DOSarrest is now able to offer additional services, including: Cloud Based Web Application Firewall (WAF) Cloud based layer 7 load balancing, Local, Global with health checks Enhanced reporting on traffic types, status codes, cache performance, etc Create virtual servers, to have us pick-up, cache and deliver content from multiple customer servers IDS engine to detect and help stop any malicious traffic “We recognised our customers’ requirements to have comprehensive security related services, rather than disparate point solutions; this new system has all the features that we need to accommodate them. The best part about this new generation of software is its flexibility at the core. What used to take days and weeks to develop and implement, can now be measured in minutes and hours,” added Jag Bains, CTO at DOSarrest. Bains went on to say: “The best part of this new release is that it enables us to quickly react and stop sophisticated attacks that have not even been created yet!” Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/23/idUSnMKWNkbj9a+1e0+MKW20140423

See the original article here:
DOSarrest Releases Latest Generation DDoS Mitigation System Software

Blockchain.info Services Down Due to DDoS Attacks

A number of users have taken to social media to report issues with their Blockchain.info wallets on Monday. The reason, according to Blockchain, relates to what has been described as “higher than usual traffic volumes due to DDoS [distributed denial of service] attacks” on the company’s servers. Upon this writing, the website presents the following message: Blockchain.info is currently down for maintenance. For status updates please see Twitter. Apologies for any inconvenience. The company took the opportunity to remind users that their wallets were safe, but made the suggestion that all users make backups upon full service restoration. Distributed denial of service attacks target one or more machines by bombarding them with information requests, slowing down services for legitimate users. DDoS attacks are almost commonplace against larger websites, often becoming a frequent occurrence. Blockchain.info serves as the internet’s most popular bitcoin-related website. Growing tremendously fast, the service recently announced the creation of their 1.5 millionth wallet. Last week, it was announced that the company, led by Nic Cary, had signed a five-year deal to hold rights to the bitcoin.com domain name. Source: http://newsbtc.com/2014/04/21/blockchain-info-services-due-ddos-attacks/

Continue Reading:
Blockchain.info Services Down Due to DDoS Attacks

Easy-to-Use NTP Amplification Emerges as Common DDoS Attack Vector

Reflection attacks using the Network Time Protocol surge in the first quarter, as attackers shift to bandwidth-clogging floods of data. In the past year, attackers have changed focus from attacking applications to overwhelming network bandwidth using brute-force reflection attacks, according to a report published April 17 by content-delivery provider Akamai. The two most popular types of reflection attacks, which bounce network traffic off intermediate servers on the Internet, have shot up in popularity, accounting for 23 percent of all infrastructure attacks in the 2014 first quarter, Akamai stated in its Prolexic Quarterly Global DDoS Attack Report. The attacks were largely unheard of in 2013, the report stated. Much of the increase is due to easy-to-use tools, including techniques for using a vulnerability in the Network Time Protocol, or NTP, not only to reflect attacks but amplify them, Matt Mosher, director security strategy for Akamai, told eWEEK. “Reflection and amplification are easier for the attackers to do,” he said. “They don’t have to build a bot army or infect a bunch of machines.” The number of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and the average bandwidth of an attack have both climbed, increasing by 47 percent and 39 percent, respectively, according to Akamai’s report. The jump occurred even as DDoS attacks that attempt to tie up applications with bogus requests declined 21 percent. Application layer attacks have declined since the third quarter of 2013, the report stated. “There have always been two dimensions to DDoS: the large volumetric attacks including amplification, and then there’s another set of DDoS that tries to create complexity and targets applications,” Mosher said. Attackers also focused on media and entertainment companies, which were the targets of nearly 50 percent of attacks. Software and technology companies were the second most popular target, at 17 percent, while security firms faced 12 percent of all DDoS attacks, according to Akamai. The largest attack seen by Akamai targeted a European entertainment firm, and exceeded 200G bps at its peak, the firm said. The attack lasted more than 10 hours, and amplified the attack volume through vulnerable servers using a combination of NTP and the Domain Name System (DNS) reflection. The attack also employed a tactic known as a POST flood attack, according to Akamai. Reflection attacks do not just use basic Internet protocols, but can use Web application features to inundate a target. An interesting attack in the first quarter of 2014 involved using the pingback function of WordPress sites to send data at the targeted network. “The effectiveness of this attack lies in the leveraging of victim WordPress Websites that have pingback functionality enabled,” the report stated. “This attack vector typically succeeds by exhausting the number of connections to the target site, rather than by overwhelming the target with bandwidth floods.” Computers in the United States, China, Thailand, Turkey and Germany accounted for almost three-quarters of all attacks, according to the report. Indonesia and South Korea were also in the top 10. “There was a noticeable presence of Asian countries in the top 10 source countries,” Akamai’s report noted. “Growing economies and an expanding IT infrastructure, plus large online populations, fuel DDoS attack campaigns.” Source: http://www.eweek.com/security/easy-to-use-ntp-amplification-emerges-as-common-ddos-attack-vector.html/

More:
Easy-to-Use NTP Amplification Emerges as Common DDoS Attack Vector

Lookout, DDoS Attackers Are Changing Their Techniques

In the past couple of years we’ve seen a drastic increase in the number of DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks taking place, many of which are being carried out as a means of protest by various groups. The attacks are attempts to make a machine or network resource such as a website totally unavailable to anyone trying to reach it. The reasons for the attacks vary, as do the means used to carry them out. A typical attack generally consists of efforts by two or more persons, and in many cases, botnets, to temporarily or indefinitely interrupt or suspend services of a specific host connected to the Internet. Such attacks usually lead to a server overload and are implemented by either forcing the targeted computer(s) to reset, or consuming enough of its resources so that it can no longer provide its intended service, or by obstructing the communication media between the intended users and the targeted victim so that they can no longer communicate. Based on a new report, now it appears that the attackers are changing their techniques in order to launch much larger scale attacks on websites. In a Global DDoS Attack Report from the 1st quarter of 2014 released Thursday, Prolexic Technology describes seeing a new trend toward “reflection and amplification techniques” which are being used more frequently in lieu of the botnet methods. The report states, “Instead of using a network of zombie computers, the newer DDoS toolkits abuse Internet protocols that are available on open or vulnerable servers and devices. We believe this approach can lead to the Internet becoming a ready-to-use botnet for malicious actors.” Prolexic mentions that these new attack tools can deliver a much more powerful punch. In this Q1 2014 report they saw a 39 percent increase in average bandwidth and also saw the largest-ever DDoS attack, one that involved multiple reflection techniques combined with a traditional botnet-based application attack. That attack generated peak traffic of more than 200 Gbps (gigabits per second) and 53.5 Mpps (million packets per second). The report also states, “Compared to the same quarter one year ago, peak attack bandwidth increased 133% compared to Q1 last year.” The full report showed that the media and entertainment industry were the targets in more than half of the attacks in the first quarter. Prolexic Technology is owned by Akamai. Unfortunately, the new techniques are becoming all too popular with some websites now providing easy access to the services for use in launching these types of attacks. Source: http://www.slyck.com/story2396_Lookout_DDoS_Attackers_Are_Changing_Their_Techniques

Link:
Lookout, DDoS Attackers Are Changing Their Techniques