The Changing Trends of DDoS Attacks

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks certainly aren’t new. I’ve been talking about them for years. However, they have been changing. The traditional style of attack, the flood-the-target type that crashes a website, is still going strong. But now we are seeing an increase in application-layer attacks that have the same goal: Systems go down, resources are unavailable and the victim is scrambling to fix everything. Recently, Vann Abernethy, senior product manager for NSFOCUS, talked to me about the changing DDoS landscape. Something he has noticed is how DDoS attacks are being used as smokescreens to cover up other criminal activity. He said: In fact, the FBI warned of one such attack type back in November of 2011, which relies upon the insertion of some form of malware. When the attacker is ready to activate the malware, a DDoS attack is launched to occupy defenders. In this case, the DDoS attack is really nothing more than a smokescreen used to confuse the defenses and allow the real attack to go unnoticed – at least initially.  Considering that most malware goes undetected for long periods of time, even a small DDoS attack should be a huge red flag that something else may be going on. Abernethy adds that another trend he’s seeing is that the DDoS attack itself may be a bit more sinister. For example, a DDoS attack could be masking a simultaneous attack that is probing for vulnerabilities. He said: It’s like a recon team sent to look at an enemy’s position while they’re under some sort of long-range barrage. In general, basic probing will likely be caught if the victim has even modest security protections. But while under the duress of a DDoS attack, the very systems charged with either blocking or alerting suspicious activity might be under too much strain. Abernethy provides several solutions to protect against these emerging DDoS attack styles. One way is to have multiple teams set up to respond to DDoS attacks. One team would work on the DDoS attacks themselves; another team would be responsible for searching for other possible, hidden attacks. For the trend that involves probing, IT and security departments may want to deploy application security testing, and all applications used by the company should be subjected to the testing. DDoS attacks can be devastating to a company , interrupting vital customer interactions and ruining company reputations. The more we know about them, the better chance we have at protecting the company from any serious damage, if not preventing them altogether. Source: http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/data-security/the-changing-trends-of-ddos-attacks.html

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The Changing Trends of DDoS Attacks

DDoS trojan ferrets SMB data

A new distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) bot has been discovered targeting real estate companies and other small and medium-sized businesses. Arbor Networks researcher Dennis Schwarz found the malware after receiving a tip-off from a Twitter user. A relatively small number of unique samples and command and control servers were uncovered, making it difficult to judge just how dangerous the new threat could be. These samples are written in the Delphi programming language but most likely originate from Russia, said Schwarz, who added that the bot’s self-preservation tools include UPX packing, string obfuscation, anti-virtual machine, anti-bugging measures, self-modifying code and process hollowing. Command and control is done over HTTP. The analyst firm has a ‘fairly complete picture’ of what the bot represents, but admitted concerns on how Trojan.Ferret is being distributed. “Trojan.Ferret is a new Russian DDoS bot.  It stood out to me due to the silly ferret theme and that we have a fairly complete picture of it,” said Schwarz, adding that the company had tracked a sample of bot, the C&C panel view and live C&C traffic. “It is a traditional DDoS bot focusing on the ‘core’ set of DDoS attacks, such as HTTP, UDP and TCP. It lacks the common application layer attacks such as Slowloris, Apache Killer, and RUDY. “A major missing component that we’re unsure of is how this particular Trojan is being distributed–whether by exploit kit, malware-laced spam, or via one of the many ‘dropper/downloader’ networks.” Schwarz said that the Trojan is targeting the UK, the US, Germany, Russia and the Netherlands, as well as Kazakhstan, and said that attacks have hit property companies, an electronics shop, a wedding dress shop and even a politician in Panama. Malwarebytes malware intelligence analyst Adam Kujawa said the information security industry is still coming to grips with the threat posed by the new DDoS bot. “It is likely of Russian origin, uses an array of specialised malware tricks to hide it from detection and of course is used as a DDOS bot,” said Kujawa.  “Ferret will infect as many systems as it can to recruit them into the Botnet and then use each of those systems to attack a single server at the same time,” he added, commenting, “A single system cannot perform a successful DDOS attack but a botnet of thousands can.” Source: http://www.scmagazine.com.au/News/368168,ddos-trojan-ferrets-smb-data.aspx

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DDoS trojan ferrets SMB data

Casino DDoS duo caged for five years after blackmail buyout threat

Polish crims demanded 50% of gambling biz, on pain of firm-killing cyber attacks A pair of cyber-extortionists who attempted to blackmail a Manchester-based online casino with threats of unleashing a debilitating denial of service attack have been jailed for five years and four months.…

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Casino DDoS duo caged for five years after blackmail buyout threat

China’s central bank hit by DDoS after Bitcoin blitz

Reports claim revenge attack after digi-currency restrictions Angry Bitcoin users are suspected of DDoS-ing the website of China’s central bank following tough new restrictions it levied this week which appear to have forced the world’s biggest Bitcoin exchange into meltdown.…

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China’s central bank hit by DDoS after Bitcoin blitz

7 Security Trends to Expect in 2014

Computer systems, in many peoples’ eyes, are there to be hacked — and that means fraudsters are always working on new ways to exploit vulnerabilities. So what does 2014 have in store? Here are seven security predictions for the New Year. DDoS Attacks Get Sneaky DDoS attackers will go from simple volumetric attacks to ones which take advantage of a site’s specific performance characteristics. That’s the prediction of security researchers at Neohapsis, a security and risk management consulting company. DDoS attacks that intelligently target bottlenecks in performance, such as pages with a high server load (like database writes) or specific network bottlenecks (like login and session management), can magnify the impact over attacks which are simply volume-based and request the homepage of a site. So it’s likely that we will begin to see the spread of tools which profile specific targets. The result? DDoS attacks that have more impact, and involve less network traffic, than the ones enterprises have become accustomed to mitigating against. Insider Threats Remain Major Security Problem According to a CyberSecurity Watch survey insiders were found to be the cause in 21 percent of security breaches, and a further 21 percent may have been due to the actions of insiders. More than half of respondents to another recent survey said it’s more difficult today to detect and prevent insider attacks than it was in 2011, and 53 percent were increasing their security budgets in response to insider threats. While a significant number of breaches are caused by malicious or disgruntled employees – or former employees – many are caused by well-meaning employees who are simply trying to do their job. BYOD programs and file sharing and collaboration services like Dropbox mean that it will be harder than ever to keep corporate data under corporate control in the face of these well-meaning but irresponsible employees. Defending against insider threats requires a multi-layered use of technological controls, including system-wide use of data encryption and establishment of policies stressing prevention of data loss. Security Worries Drive Cloud Consolidation Organizations will look to buy more solutions from a single vendor and demand greater integration between solutions to automate security, according to Eric Chiu, president of HyTrust, a cloud security company. The fact that securing cloud environments is very different from securing traditional physical environments will drive greater consolidation in the market, he says. Legacy Systems Cause More Security Headaches The spate of IT failures in banks and other high profile companies highlights a simple fact: Many of them are running legacy systems which are so old and out of date that they are becoming almost impossible to maintain. That’s because there are few people with the skills and expert knowledge that would be needed to run them securely – even if they were updated to eliminate know vulnerabilities, which they frequently are not. They often aren’t updated because no-one knows what impact that would have. It’s inevitable that we’ll see hackers going after such systems, exploiting vulnerabilities that can’t easily be fixed. Encryption Will Be Revisited In the wake of revelations about the NSA, many companies are realizing that encryption many be the only thing that is protecting their data, and it may not be as strong as they imagined. What’s more, if hackers are led to believe there is a weakness in a particular system – either accidental or intentional – they will pound on it until they find it. As a result, many companies will look to improve the way they use encryption. Look for particular attention to be paid to cryptographic block modes like CBC and OFB, and authenticated modes like EAX, CCM and GCM, advise the experts at Neohapsis. In addition to the encryption methods themselves, look for insights and innovations around key management and forward security. ‘Stuxnets’ Become More Common State-sponsored malware like Stuxnet – which is widely attributed to the United States, Israel or both – has proved to be far more sophisticated and effective than anything that a couple of hackers can develop. Expect more of this type of malware from the likes of China, Russia, Iran, India, Brazil and Pakistan. It’s probably already out there, even if it hasn’t yet been detected. 2014 could be the year that its prevalence becomes apparent. Bitcoin Drives New Malware The Bitcoin virtual currency is growing in popularity with legitimate businesses, and that’s likely to continue. That’s because Bitcoin payments offer significant attractions: They are quick and cheap, and there is no possibility of a chargeback. But Bitcoin wallets make attractive targets for criminals, because stolen coins can be cashed out instantly, without a middleman or launderer taking a cut. And many Bitcoin users are relatively unsophisticated, protecting their wallets with very little security. So expect Trojans and other malware that specifically look for and target Bitcoin stashes, as well as ransomware that demands Bitcoins in return for decrypting data. Source: http://www.esecurityplanet.com/network-security/7-security-trends-to-expect-in-2014.html

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7 Security Trends to Expect in 2014

New DDoS malware targets Linux and Windows systems

Attackers are compromising Linux and Windows systems to install a new malware program designed for launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, according to researchers from the Polish Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT Polska). Attackers are compromising Linux and Windows systems to install a new malware program designed for launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, according to researchers from the Polish Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT Polska). The malware was found by the Polish CERT at the beginning of December and the Linux version is being deployed following successful dictionary-based password guessing attacks against the SSH (Secure Shell) service. This means only systems that allow remote SSH access from the Internet and have accounts with weak passwords are at risk of being compromised by attackers distributing this malware. “We were able to obtain a 32-bit, statically linked, ELF file,” the Polish CERT researchers said Monday in a blog post. The executable runs in daemon mode and connects to a command-and-control (C&C) server using a hard-coded IP (Internet Protocol) address and port, they said. When first run, the malware sends operating system information — the output of the uname command — back to the C&C server and waits for instructions. “From the analysis we were able to determine that there are four types of attack possible, each of them a DDoS attack on the defined target,” the researchers said. “One of the possibilities is the DNS Amplification attack, in which a request, containing 256 random or previously defined queries, is sent to a DNS server. There are also other, unimplemented functions, which probably are meant to utilize the HTTP protocol in order to perform a DDoS attack.” While executing an attack, the malware provides information back to the C&C server about the running task, the CPU speed, system load and network connection speed. A variant of the DDoS malware also exists for Windows systems where it is installed as “C:Program FilesDbProtectSupportsvchost.exe” and is set up to run as a service on system start-up. Unlike the Linux version, the Windows variant connects to the C&C server using a domain name, not an IP address, and communicates on a different port, according to the Polish CERT analysis. However, the same C&C server was used by both the Linux and Windows variants, leading the Polish CERT researchers to conclude that they were created by the same group. Since this malware was designed almost exclusively for DDoS attacks, the attackers behind it are likely interested in compromising computers with significant network bandwidth at their disposal, like servers. “This also probably is the reason why there are two versions of the bot — Linux operating systems are a popular choice for server machines,” the researchers said. However, this is not the only malware program designed for Linux that was identified recently. A security researcher from the George Washington University, Andre DiMino, recently found and analyzed a malicious bot written in Perl after allowing attackers to compromise one of his honeypot Linux systems. The attackers were trying to exploit an old PHP vulnerability, so DiMino intentionally configured his system to be vulnerable so he could track their intentions. The vulnerability is known as CVE-2012-1823 and was patched in PHP 5.4.3 and PHP 5.3.13 in May 2012, suggesting the attack targeted neglected servers whose PHP installations haven’t been updated in a long time. After allowing his honeypot system to be compromised, DiMino saw attackers deploy malware written in Perl that connected to an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server used by attackers for command and control. The bot then downloaded local privilege escalation exploits and a script used to perform Bitcoin and Primecoin mining — an operation that uses computing power to generate virtual currency. “Most servers that are injected with these various scripts are then used for a variety of tasks, including DDoS, vulnerability scanning, and exploiting,” DiMino said Tuesday in a blog post that provides a detailed analysis of the attack. “The mining of virtual currency is now often seen running in the background during the attacker’s ‘downtime’.” DiMino’s report comes after researchers from security vendor Symantec warned in November that the same PHP vulnerability was being exploited by a new Linux worm. The Symantec researchers found versions of the worm not only for x86 Linux PCs, but also for Linux systems with the ARM, PPC, MIPS and MIPSEL architectures. This led them to conclude that the attackers behind the worm were also targeting home routers, IP cameras, set-top boxes and other embedded systems with Linux-based firmware. Source: http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=41695C7E-ED43-55A5-51306549A5A0A129

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New DDoS malware targets Linux and Windows systems

DDoS botnet spreading on Linux and Windows machines

A blended DDoS botnet consisting of both Windows and Linux machines has been detected by researchers working with the Polish CERT. The botnet is exclusively dedicated to mounting DDoS attacks, main…

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DDoS botnet spreading on Linux and Windows machines

DDoS attacks lead to 18 percent of data center outages

Maintaining top-of-the-line server performance is a delicate balancing act between power consumption, user accessibility and a variety of other factors both physical and abstract that can affect how well employees do their jobs or how quickly and effectively IT-related tasks are accomplished. Yet in many cases, even the most stringent attempts to keep the data center operating without issue can run afoul due to external forces. In the past, distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks were a small fraction of the reasons that businesses experienced outages in their IT infrastructure. However, recent findings from the Ponemon Institute reveal that they now account for 18 percent of these problems. This is up from only 2 percent in 2010, when Ponemon last studied the phenomenon. Data centers get caught in the cross-fire Often enough, these attacks are not even targeting data centers, 451 Research analyst Eric Hanselman told Network Computing. Rather, hackers are attempting to shut down the applications hosted in the IT infrastructure, and the servers become collateral damage in the process. Furthermore, due to the heightened sophistication of DDoS attacks, which are now both faster and more effective due to the amount of traffic that can be generated, these assaults are even harder to stop or recover from than ever. “It appears that these attacks are much more frequent and more difficult to contain than other root causes of data center outages,” Larry Ponemon, founder of the privacy and security think tank that bears his name, said in an email interview with Network Computing. Preventative measures begin with server monitoring Due to the problems associated with these attacks, decision-makers should try and stop them as early as possible. Noticing suspicious activity before it causes an outage can help immensely, but that requires businesses to implement server monitoring tools that can notice suspicious activity such as an uptick in traffic. “The most surprising factor was the lack of readiness or preparedness of companies,” Ponemon told Network Computing. “In general, we found several companies completely unprepared to deal with this type of outage event.” The high cost of a DDoS-based outage Those companies that fail to prevent or ready themselves for a DDoS-based outage may find themselves paying $822,000 on average to deal with the problem, second only to the average cost of outages caused by equipment failure ($959,000), according to Network Computing. This is more than double the expense of dealing with problems originating with human error, which typically only amount to $380,000. These costs relate to lost work time, reduced revenue and the repairs themselves, though overall business disruption amounts to 80 percent of the expenses. While an outage may not be quite as expensive to a smaller business, one could cause relatively similar amounts of damage, and all companies should be ready to quickly get back on their feet after these types of incidents. “The cost of unplanned downtime – whether it is the entire data center or one rack of servers – can be a huge unplanned cost for most organizations,” Ponemon told Network Computing. While Ponemon noted that businesses should expect a data center outage at some point, companies should still strive to minimize the possibility of a breach or attack. Putting in the proper safeguards and having a robust disaster recovery plan in place can reduce the amount of time that servers spend out of service. By implementing the right tools to notice and stop suspicious activity that may be the result of a DDoS attack, decision-makers may also potentially prevent about one-fifth of possible outage causes. Source: http://copperegg.com/ddos-attacks-lead-to-18-percent-of-data-center-outages/

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DDoS attacks lead to 18 percent of data center outages

Mozilla blocks rogue add-on that made computers scan sites for flaws

A singular new botnet composed of over 12,500 infected computers has been used by its masters to effectively crowdsource the search for websites vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. As explained …

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Mozilla blocks rogue add-on that made computers scan sites for flaws