DDoS

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Cyber Warfare: Should We Be On The Offensive?

The world needs a treaty to prevent cyber attacks becoming an all-out war, the head of the main UN communications and technology agency warned Saturday.

“A cyber war would be worse than a tsunami — a catastrophe,” the UN official said, highlighting examples such as attacks on Estonia last year Continue reading →

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North Korea Cyber Scape Goat of the World

North Korean Cyber War

Never before have so many misrepresented so much about so little…

In all my years in the security industry I do not believe I have read more misinformation than the nonsense surrounding the recent DDoS attacks. Apparently North Korea is waging Cyber Warfare, or if not an actual all out cyberwar they are behind a targeted “cyber attack”.

Let’s look at what we know…

  • Multiple US and South Korean websites fell victim to sustained distributed denial of service attacks (happens all the time)
  • The DDoS attack used tens of thousands of compromised hosts (I have seen bigger)
  • The compromised hosts appear to have been infected using well known and easily shielded against malware (What else is new?)
  • The organizations that were impacted and had taken proper measures to defend against a DDoS were not materially impacted (At least someone was thinking ahead)

This is just business as usual on the Internet – nothing to see here folks – these DDoS attacks could have been just as easily launched by an awkward prepubescent child with about 2 years of computer experience as they could have come from a coordinated, state-sponsored, North Korean attempt to test our defenses.

Just so we are clear this is no more Cyber Warfare than me running to the Mexican border and throwing 10,000 apple pies at the Mexican Federales is a coordinated US invasion of Mexico. Continue reading →