FINAL WORD
Hamman says the IoT brings new
demands and requirements to DDoS
protection. He adds, “The Mirai IoT
botnet reminds us that manufacturers
and vendors also have a growing
responsibility with respect to their
technology and how it will be applied
in diverse environments. They need to
test for and consider the potential for
exploitation. Ideally, all devices should
be assessed for risk at the manufacturer
and then again by those who are
responsible for selling/implementing
them in enterprises.”
– Dutch anti-spam website Spamhaus
is targeted for naming and blacklisting
cybercrime hosting enterprises, spam
and botnet operations.
• 2014: PlayStation Network and Xbox
Live are attacked on Christmas Day.
• 2014: In Hong Kong, a huge attack
is carried out against the territory’s
pro-democracy websites. While many
assumed that the culprit would have
been the Chinese government, this is
not necessarily certain. The attacker
could, however, be someone who
is not sympathetic with the Hong
Kong democracy movement, or
someone trying to make the Chinese
government look bad.
• 2015: The Turkish Internet is hit with
a massive DDoS attack, which came in
the wake of Turkey shooting down a
Russian military aircraft.
• 2015: British phone and broadband
provider, TalkTalk, which has over four
million UK customers, is hit by a DDoS
attack, which is used as a smokescreen
while customers’ personal information
is stolen.
• 2015: On New Year’s Eve of 2015, the
BBC’s entire domain, including its on-
demand television and radio player, is
down for three hours and continues to
have issues for the rest of the day. The
attack is claimed by a group called the
‘New World Hackers’.
• 2016: An IoT botnet targets a major
international event with sophisticated,
large-scale DDoS attacks sustaining
500 Gb/sec in attack traffic for the
duration of the event.
www.intelligentcio.com
• 2016: The Mirai IoT botnet launches
1Tbps multi-vector DDoS attack
against DNS infrastructure, taking
many of the world’s most popular
websites offline.
Looking forward –
where to from here?
Hamman says, “We can see clearly,
when we look at the timeline of some
of the most prominent DDoS attacks
over the past two decades, that
perpetrators launch these attacks for a
variety of reasons. They can be hackers
who want to make a statement, as in
the case of Mafiaboy; governments of
countries at war using cyberwarfare
tactics as part of their general arsenal;
and criminals trying to blackmail
online businesses.
“There are also examples when cyber
activists show displeasure against their
targets, such as the 2011 attacks by
members of Anonymous against the
sites of PayPal, Visa and MasterCard,
and the 2013 attacks against
Spamhaus. The online gaming industry
has also been targeted, with the blame
generally going to disgruntled players
or even competitors. We’ve also seen
instances when DDoS attacks are used
as a smokescreen to camouflage or
draw attention away from other criminal
activity an attacker might be doing,
such as stealing data from the victim’s
network, as in the 2015 example of the
UK telecom TalkTalk.”
Hamman concludes, “Previously, it
used to be that only certain types of
business would be likely targets for a
DDoS attack, with finance, gaming
and e-commerce at the top of the list.
Today, any business, for any reason,
can become a target of a DDoS attack.
A number of DDoS-for-hire services, for
example, will take down a competitor’s
website for any business that wants to
hire them.
“The only answer, therefore, is to ensure
you are protected. Arbor provides the
industry’s most comprehensive suite of
DDoS attack protection products and
services for the enterprise, cloud/hosting
and service provider markets, with the
required deployment model, scalability
and pricing flexibility to meet the DDoS
protection needs of any organisation
operating online today.” n
“The Mirai IoT
botnet reminds us
that manufacturers
and vendors also
have a growing
responsibility
with respect to
their technology
and how it will be
applied in diverse
environments.”
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