Biggest DDoS Attack ever hits US and Europe

[Oberon]

I briefly mentioned this in Skybirds thread but since then it seems to have spread a bit. Seems to have been a large scale co-ordinated assault on DNS servers on the US East Coast, quite impressive in its scale.
Who's behind it? Who can say, maybe a national agency or maybe an organisation, or maybe just the 'Internet hacker known as 4chan'.

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2016/10/this-is-probably-why-half-the-internet-shut-down-today/

[Julhelm]

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:hmmm:

[Onkel Neal]

Wow, not good. I wonder if there's some way to determine who is responsible?

[Oberon]

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:hmmm:

https://dustedoff.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/pic73.jpg

[eddie]

I keep wondering if there is some kind of way to come up with technology that would render a DOS attack ineffective?

[Takeda Shingen]

I keep wondering if there is some kind of way to come up with technology that would render a DOS attack ineffective?

It would only be effective until someone finds a way to circumvent it. That probably would take about a week. It would seem that nothing is hack-proof.

[Oberon]

It would only be effective until someone finds a way to circumvent it. That probably would take about a week. It would seem that nothing is hack-proof.

The old saying goes, as soon as you make a bigger mouse-trap, they make a bigger mouse. :dead:

[Oberon]

Interesting conspiracy theory suddenly has sprung up. Involving Mr Assange.

Wikileak's twitter apparently showed 'heavy armed police' outside the Ecuadorian embassy on Tuesday, the internet to the embassy was cut around the same day. Today there was an evacuation at London City Airport, the closest airport to the embassy because of a 'chemical incident' (early reports indicate it may have been a canister of CS gas) and now the attacks taking twitter offline.

#ShowUsJulian has started up on twitter, needless to say, and people are calling on Trump to pledge to pardon Assange if he gained the presidency, claiming that it will win him a landslide of votes.

Interesting stuff. :hmmm:

[mapuc]

Are you telling us(me mostly) that this DDoS attack and the attack on twitter most likely have USA and its government as the "yours sincerely" ?

Just wondering

Markus

[Oberon]

Well, that's what the conspiracy reckons, but honestly I couldn't tell you who did this...primarily because no-one knows yet. I mean, Dyn said that they didn't think that this was a state actor, but it's hard to say. I've seen other accounts that say that wikileaks has claimed responsibility because they thought that Assange had been killed by the British government.

There's going to be a lot of speculation in the coming 24 hours, but this is a definite wake-up call to ISPs and DNS providers that such a large scale assault using what is essentially a very primitive method of attack is not only possible but probable.

Primative it may be though, but the thinking and coding behind it, very smart, very clever. Bot-nets run from millions of items connected to the internet, printers, routers, cameras, all sending a ping to Dyn asking it for information. For all you know your router could be doing it right now, and you wouldn't even know it. Perhaps a miniscule portion of lag as you load a new page, you dismiss it as 'the internet playing up', as we all do, but that one request for information has gone out not just from your router but millions of other devices all across the world.

From a technical standpoint, it's fantastically impressive.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/10/double-dip-internet-of-things-botnet-attack-felt-across-the-internet/

[mapuc]

Erased after having read Oberon's comments a second time

"your router could be doing it right now" Even if I have a two-way firewall(I think I have)

Markus

[Oberon]

Erased after having read Oberon's comments a second time

"your router could be doing it right now" Even if I have a two-way firewall(I think I have)

Markus

Depends on what is let through it I guess, as Two Bears put it, you build a firewall and someone finds a way around it, so you patch that, and then someone else finds a way around that. :hmmm:

[August]

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:hmmm:

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-- -.-- / -.. .- -.-- :)

[Torplexed]

I blame all those blenders and coffee makers connected to the internet. Never trusted those things. :nope:

[Oberon]

I blame all those blenders and coffee makers connected to the internet. Never trusted those things. :nope:

The pepper pots are the worst ones:

http://www.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/wp-images/daleks/profiles/16-dalek-full.jpg

[d@rk51d3]

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lerhl2JaFj1qcoktfo1_400.gif

[Onkel Neal]

I blame all those blenders and coffee makers connected to the internet. Never trusted those things. :nope:


Wait, are you saying I won't have coffee in the morning? :timeout:

[Oberon]

Wait, are you saying I won't have coffee in the morning? :timeout:

http://i.makeagif.com/media/7-23-2015/NFvlPX.gif

[Torplexed]

Wait, are you saying I won't have coffee in the morning? :timeout:

Neal, I have faith that your rough and tumble cowboy instincts will see you through.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/37/7d/f7/377df7d2e57798bfc4c5f5479785a01b.jpg

However, if that fails there is always Starbucks. :D

[Oberon]

However, if that fails there is always Starbucks. :D

That's what the Toasters want you to do!!

https://66.media.tumblr.com/dc3b00a9abe49491e0f29ccae9aaacba/tumblr_o0m5aoyzrH1ssuoa0o1_500.gif

[Jimbuna]

Surprised I haven't seen any finger pointing directed toward Putin or the Chinese yet :hmmm:

[Oberon]

Surprised I haven't seen any finger pointing directed toward Putin or the Chinese yet :hmmm:

Well, Dyn did say pretty early that they didn't think that this was a state sponsored entity, and then Wikileaks seems to have claimed responsibility shortly afterwards.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvWCCrWUsAAHBEb.jpg

[STEED]

May as well log off for good at this rate.

[Skybird]

Wait, are you saying I won't have coffee in the morning? :timeout:
Best coffee maker money can buy:
https://pull01-kegworks.netdna-ssl.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/small_image/570x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/f/p/fp-20-french-press-coffee-maker-b1_1.jpg

Best bean supply at least in my corner of the world:
http://www.bluespot.de/system/assets/media/000/002/643/652x464/MS019_Muenster_Roestbar_II_015.jpg?1348060251

Manual labour needed. No web-connection required. No threat of DDoS attacks at all. Virus scanners and firewalls can be left disabled.

Amazon delivering me foods? Refrigerators automatically stocking up supplies? Espresso machines linked to the web?

Hilarious! But I live in a cave anyway - my kitchen has no TV. And when I eat, I st5ill must move my jaw by muscular effort - no smartphone-programmed machine support for biting, chewing and swallowing. Life is is exhausting.

(Just in case somebody goes nuts over this, the disclaimer: :woot: )

[Skybird]

German media refer to experts by security company Norsecorp who said that this was not only thze biggest such attack ever seen - but that it as stunnihng to observe that it did no significant damage. And right this fact, these experts say, is most alarming, because they take it as an indication that somebody has launched this attack only as a test run for a very mighty, powerful cyberweapon, to see whether it works or not.

There are many nations on this planet whose capacities to handle web data traffic would have been knocked out by the scale of this attack. Most states, to be preciseIf launched for serious intentions of attacking such states, they would have had to handle a complete breakdown of their technical infrastructure. The attacked companies in this test run are all kown for having quite huge reserves in handling data traffic.

The computer electronics in the hardware of private households used in this attack were mostly made by one Chinese company, and to lower production costs the electronics components were chosen to be so cheap that they cannot be updated with firmware or new security code. The vulnerability cannot be patched.

Key code used in this attack to hack foreign gadgets and eevices and use them for the bot attack, was published already weeks ago on the web, and is known under the name "Mirai". Attackers can use it to delete their traces and makie it impossvb le to analyse their attack pattern, it also allows any "custoimer" of Mirai to construct his own peroisnal cyber weapon easily, according to his needs.

It reminds me of what I described three or four years ago, about drone technology: that drone technology components will be internationally produced and sold, but used to construct drones by just anybody, who then can attack sombody else, a nation for example, without the attcked being able to point fingers at the ID of the attcker, for even if he can get his hands on the drone, he will only find it to be build by components knowing heads can buy at will on the black - or even the open - market. Possessing the enemy's wepaon will nit help you to identify the attacker. Could be companies. States. Crime cartels. Terror organizations. Private persons with enough money. Anything goes.

The state will become more and more unable to protect its citizens form this kind of drone attacks. Could be cyber attacks. Could be assassination attacks. Could be bombing runs. Could be espionage, surveillance or computer attacks.

The nextbig war will become interesting. I think it already has begun. And there are no clear frontlines anymore.

[Oberon]

Back in the 1990s, around 1997, I brought two little books off a service that used to be run with the schools that enabled you to order books off a little magazine thing, both were to do with predictions, one was to do with Climate and the other was:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CbwLmDSW4AEMvBn.jpg

I remember one of the chapters spoke about "Grunts, Geeks and Crazies" and I think that there is still a lot of accuracy in that in a future battlefield and even to some extent in our current battlefield.

Grunts are the traditional PBI, Poor Bloody Infantry, whether they're genetically enhanced or wear exoskeletons, they will always be a part of the battlefield. Drones can and will fill a lot of roles, but there will always be human boots on the ground.
Geeks are the hackers, waging war on the internet, through social media and through direct attacks, their capability to do damage is increasing as exponentially as our interconnectivity.
Crazies are the radicals, the jihadists, the Breviks, those who are willing to kill in the name of their doctrine or have been brainwashed by others to kill. The people who are organising and recruiting the crazies are never the ones who sacrifice themselves for their goals, they use others as pawns in their goals.

Not bad for a book written in 1997, although it missed in the India/Pakistan wars and the Chinese invasion of Taiwan...well...it got the date wrong at least...who can say whether that's a missed prediction full stop. :hmmm:

[Onkel Neal]

Sounds pretty interesting, I will see if ebay has a copy.

[Skybird]

Militarily, autonomy is the logical next step in drones to avoid them getting hacked and hijacked. But from then on, the inhibitions to wage undeclared and unidentified wars everybody against everybody will dramatically drop.

Combine that with artificial swarm intelligence, and maybe scientists like Hawkings, warning against hightech and AI being the reason for mankind going extinct, one day may be shown to have gotten it right.

And this does not even consider autonomous swarm drones using biological and nuclear weapons.

[Oberon]

Militarily, autonomy is the logical next step in drones to avoid them getting hacked and hijacked. But from then on, the inhibitions to wage undeclared and unidentified wars everybody against everybody will dramatically drop.

Combine that with artificial swarm intelligence, and maybe scientists like Hawkings, warning against hightech and AI being the reason for mankind going extinct, one day may be shown to have gotten it right.

And this does not even consider autonomous swarm drones using biological and nuclear weapons.

I wonder if nuclear weapons are going to go out of fashion at some point, I mean at the moment they're the most explosive weapon that we have, but also one of the most messy, especially if it's something horrific like a cobalt enhanced bomb. Same goes for biological weaponry, it's something that can cause a problem for the user as well as the enemy. Although there is a difference with biological which I'll come back to in a moment.
The weaponry that is wanted is clean and consise weaponry, pinpoint accurate long range stuff, like a tiny seeker bullet which kills only one person in a crowd. Stuff that avoids collateral damage which in a multi-media environment leads to civilian backlash.
Unfortunately that will lead to the exact opposite to what you say in the opening paragraph because such assassination weaponry will make it much much easier to wage undeclared wars.
Of course, it would be slightly harder to automate an assassination drone, it would require a clear facial recognition and body identification program which can be tricked by surgery. So you'd probably have to keep that one manned.
One that could be automated is when it comes down to genetically precise biological warfare, which I fear is literally around the corner, where a virus can be unleashed on a populace that only kills people of a particular ethnic group who have that marker in their DNA. Now that is pretty disturbing stuff, and I really hope that never happens but it's a genie in a bottle and someone will let it out someday. :dead:

[Skybird]

The weaponry that is wanted is clean and consise weaponry, pinpoint accurate long range stuff, like a tiny seeker bullet which kills only one person in a crowd.

Only as long as you are no crazy kiddie, religiously or politically.

Some religous lunatics think that their god wants "it". Some fatalists think "it" is inevitable anyway, and they just help evolution to speed up things a bit. And in the Eastern hemisphere you find many leaders who by their socialisation learned that a man must pose strong and has to boast and pump his chest and hit the table with his fist until it breaks. Thats why the West has misread Putin's determination since so many years.

And some just want to see the world burn. The hotter the better.

[Oberon]

This is true, but when you look at terrorist attacks in the western world they do seem to be very low-tech style affairs, compared to the scenarios that we on forums and the media cook up for them to undertake, scenarios which would paralyse the whole country, rather than bring a city to a standstill.
Drones, for example, are relatively cheap these days, and a single one could feasibly bring down a helicopter. A small swarm could bring down an airliner and the terrifying thing about either is that it would be hard to trace the perpetrator unless a local passer by noticed suspicious people playing with drones underneath a take-off path from an airport.
The real ingenuity in terror groups seems to come back at their source, in places like Afghanistan and Syria where strange hybrid technicals appear with all kinds of weaponry attached to them, to the extent that a BMD gets dressed up to look like an Ostwind. :doh: Ok, it's not always the terror groups, it's both sides in the conflict using what they can, but the fact is that it's usually done there and not done here. Instead here we have more basic tools such as suicide belts, guns, bombs and more recently vehicles.
It works, don't get me wrong, it works and it's relatively easy to undertake, which is probably why they do it, the more complicated a plan is, the more likely it is to go wrong. But I remember in the immediate years after 9/11, most of us were absolutely convinced that there would be another attack on the scale of 9/11 within a few years. There's even a predictions page on this forum from around 2002-2003ish in which many people make that prediction. Yet a very different form of attack has emerged which is much smaller in scope but has a fairly powerful psychological punch of its own.
So, are we lucky? Or have we over-estimated the scope of these people? Or is it a bit of both, I think most likely a bit of both, since there no doubt have been those who would like to undertake some of the more bold actions that we theorized could and would take place 'imminently', but our intelligence services have found these people and put them away before they could get started...which means in turn that the strategy has changed from grand plans to small, hard to intercept, easy to plan attacks in populated areas. :hmmm:
It's an interesting, and terrifying, subject to consider, if you take the reasoning behind the attacks away (to avoid becoming bogged down in ideological discourse) and just focus on the style and (pardon the expression) execution of them, then you can sort of understand why they choose them rather than a thousand other ideas that we could list which would rank from being feasible to being more likely to get you put in a super-max.

[Catfish]

There was a book by austrian Marc Elsberg called "Blackout", a not-so-fictional book about a more sophisticated terror attack, just only by influencing remote-controlled electric meters, and what happens after a few hours, days and weeks without electricity. No heating, no water to drink or for flushing, no fuel in excess of what you have in the tank.

Those electric meters are now all the rage in Europe, and i can only warn everyone to use this kind of stuff. Often it is tried to be forced on by the electrical companies, but you can at least try to avoid it and get an old-style meter.
On the other hand all major electricity-generating plants are being controlled by software, which is also being attacked in the book - in Europe, all major plants are interlinked to control production, distribution and efficiency by one old software system.

Infiltration and abuse is entirely possible if you remember "Stuxnet" – ok the latter was created by the "good" guys to wreak havoc on production of fissionable products in "rogue states", but we can expect to be seen as just that by the "bad" guys..

Inspired by the books' contents the german federal office has recently printed some brochures about what to do and how to get over such an event for two weeks, but it sure is not easy, especially for sick people in hospitals, and a lot people will die within two weeks. And after those two weeks...