The PBot botnet was the most significant DDoS malware around in Q2 2017. Malicious actors employed decades-old PHP code to craft the largest attack that security firm Akamai observed in the second quarter of last year, according to its quarterly … [Read more...] about What was the PBot Botnet?
Mirai
The Mysterious Hajime IoT Botnet Makes a Comeback
At the end of last month, the infosec Twitter community was aflame with talk about the return of the Hajime IoT botnet, seeking out unpatched MikroTik devices to commandeer. Suspicious scans for port 8291 first alerted security researchers to its … [Read more...] about The Mysterious Hajime IoT Botnet Makes a Comeback
Researchers Detect New Iot Botnet DDoS Attacks
According to new research by Recorded Future, Inc., a security company that specializes in machine-based threat intelligence, a new IoT botnet has been detected as the culprit behind a series of DDoS attacks on financial services companies earlier … [Read more...] about Researchers Detect New Iot Botnet DDoS Attacks
IP Cameras and the Four Botnets that Target Them
IP cameras are a common target for botnets. There is significant competition between different malware families. Each has its own unique set of features, but all aim to build defenses to block other malware from taking over their turf. Each piece of … [Read more...] about IP Cameras and the Four Botnets that Target Them
Mirai and Minecraft
When the three U.S. hackers, Paras Jha, Josiah White and Dalton Norman, pled guilty to creating the Mirai botnet last year, it became apparent from a Wired investigation that the three had created the botnet in the first place to create a competitive … [Read more...] about Mirai and Minecraft
Key Takeaways on DDoS from Akamai’s Q4 2017 Report
Akamai’s latest security report, focused on Q4 2017, noted that DDoS attacks went up by 14% year-on-year. Application-layer attacks rose by 115% quarter by quarter, however, they still comprised under 1% of all DDoS attacks. Year-on-year, there was … [Read more...] about Key Takeaways on DDoS from Akamai’s Q4 2017 Report
The Last Decade in DDoS
DDoS attacks have seen a huge explosion in size and scale over the last decade. The last three years alone have seen the largest DDoS attack in history milestone be repeatedly knocked down. One of the most interesting of these in terms of politics … [Read more...] about The Last Decade in DDoS
The Mirai Copycats
On September 30, 2016, Mirai’s alleged author, nicknamed “Anna-senpai” (who we now know was Paras Jha from Farnwood, N.J.) released the Mirai source code on Hackforums, an infamous online hacking forum. Along with it, he wrote a post, announcing his … [Read more...] about The Mirai Copycats
vDoS Booter Service and the Attack against Brian Krebs
Before Mirai came into the public eye, the FBI was working on a case involving two teens running a DDoS-for-hire service called vDOS. Two young Israeli men were using the massive vDOS botnet to offer a booter service, aimed at helping gamers knock … [Read more...] about vDoS Booter Service and the Attack against Brian Krebs
How the FBI took down the Mirai creators
At the end of last year, the FBI filed charges against the creators of Mirai, the largest DDoS attack of its kind when it struck the DNS provider, Dyn in October 2016 and took down the sites for some of the largest companies in the U.S., including … [Read more...] about How the FBI took down the Mirai creators
The Men Behind Mirai
Last month, three men pleaded guilty to creating the Mirai botnet, in which hundreds of thousands of connected digital video records, routers and cameras were used to launch a massive DDoS attack against the domain name services company, Dyn for an … [Read more...] about The Men Behind Mirai
IoT Case Study 2: Reaper
The mammoth botnet of 2017 was “Reaper”, also known as “IoT Troop”, which compared to its parallel of 2016, “Mirai”, looks set to have a considerably larger impact and is significantly more complicated. Looking back, the Mirai botnet seems … [Read more...] about IoT Case Study 2: Reaper
The Evolving DDoS Landscape, According to Fastly
Fastly recently published its end-of-year post looking at the evolving DDoS landscape. Fastly has scaled rapidly since its founding in 2011 as a CDN into an edge cloud platform serving more than 10% of all Internet requests worldwide, putting it … [Read more...] about The Evolving DDoS Landscape, According to Fastly
Were Script Kiddies Behind the DDoS Attack Against DNS Provider, Dyn?
In hacking and programming culture, a script kiddie is a derisive term used to describe people who use existing computer scripts or code to hack into computers because they lack the expertise or desire to write their own. The Urban Dictionary … [Read more...] about Were Script Kiddies Behind the DDoS Attack Against DNS Provider, Dyn?
What is a DDoS Attack?
A DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack is when someone uses multiple computers to perform a denial-of-service attack (DoS). Both DoS and DDoS attacks work by overwhelming the target or its infrastructure with a large volume or “flood” of … [Read more...] about What is a DDoS Attack?