What is a DDoS Attack? TrickBot: The multi-faceted botnet. Top Ransomware Attacks of An analysis of the technology that drove the attack revealed that it was in some ways simpler than other assaults. While the Dyn attack was the product of the Mirai botnet , which required malware to infest thousands of IoT devices, the GitHub attack exploited servers running the Memcached memory caching system, which can return very large chunks of data in response to simple requests.
Memcached is meant to be used only on protected servers running on internal networks, and generally has little by way of security to prevent malicious attackers from spoofing IP addresses and sending huge amounts of data at unsuspecting victims.
Unfortunately, thousands of Memcached servers are sitting on the open internet , and there has been a huge upsurge in their use in DDoS attacks. Saying that the servers are "hijacked" is barely fair, as they'll cheerfully send packets wherever they're told without asking questions.
An investigation across security teams within Akamai, Cloudflare, Flashpoint, Google, RiskIQ and Team Cymru uncovered a similarly sized botnet , dubbed WireX, consisting of , compromised Android devices within countries.
A series of large DDoS attacks that targeted content providers and content delivery networks prompted the investigation. On June 21, , Akamai reported that it had mitigated a DDoS attack on a large European bank that peaked at million packets per second Mpps , the largest ever packet volume.
This attack was designed to overwhelm the network gear and applications in the target's data center by sending billions of small 29 bytes including IPv4 header packets.
Akamai researchers said that this attack was unique because of the large number of source IP addresses used. We saw upward of x the number of source IPs per minute, compared to what we normally observe for this customer destination," the researchers noted. While the volume of DDoS attacks has wavered over time, they are still a significant threat. Torii is capable of taking over a range of IoT devices and is considered more persistent and dangerous than Mirai. DemonBot hijacks Hadoop clusters, which gives it access to more computing power.
Another alarming trend is the availability of new DDoS launch platforms like 0x-booter. For example, network-layer attacks typically did not exceed 50 million PPS. The report's authors attributed this to DDoS-for-hire services, which offer unlimited but small attacks. Imperva did see some very large attacks in including a network-layer attack that reached million PPS and an application-layer attack that peaked at , RPS and lasted 13 days. That trend changed in Q4 when Cloudflare reported a "massive uptick" in the number of attacks over Mbps and 50K pps.
Cloudflare also observed what it called a "distrubing trend" in the increased number of RDDoS attacks in , where organizations receive a threat of a DDoS attack that will disrupt their operations unless a ransom is paid. The malicious parties tend to target victims that are less able to respond and recover from such an attack. Typically, DDoS attackers rely on botnets — collections of a network of malware-infected systems that are centrally controlled.
Google divulged the flood attack in late in an effort to draw awareness to an increase in state-sponsored attacks. The organization did not specify any loss of data due to the incident, but plans to enhance preventative measures to thwart the rise in attacks. In recent years, multiple sectors have reported increasing rates of sector-specific DDoS attacks ranging from manufacturing and retail to financial institutions and even governments.
The May, attack on the Belgium government affected more than organizations. But it was specifically designed to disrupt the workings of their government. DDoS attacks on specific sectors can be used as political dissent or to signify disagreement with certain business practices or ideals. You often see images of nefarious, dark-hooded individuals to symbolize the malicious threat actor. In reality, these groups of attackers are often well known to authorities and use DDoS tactics to gain influence, disrupt government and military operations or cause people to lose confidence in a market sector, company brand or long-established institution.
Regardless of the motivations that power these attacks, hackers can easily be hired to help launch a DDoS attack—available simply as guns for hire.
Individuals or entire commercial groups are available for hire on the dark web , often under a service model, similar to that of infrastructure as a service IaaS or software as a service SaaS. In fact, Radware issued a global security alert in August of in response to the expanding prevalence of DDoS-for-hire attacks. While DDoS attacks vary greatly in nature when it comes to tactics and methods, DDoS attackers also may have a multitude of motives, including the following. Attackers use several devices to target organizations.
These are some common tools used in DDoS attacks:. DDoS attackers get more and more savvy every day. Attacks are expanding in size and duration, with no signs of slowing. Organizations need to keep a finger on the pulse of incidents to understand how susceptible they may be to a DDoS attack.
While organizations in any industry are vulnerable, these sectors are subject to DDoS attacks most often:. From a tactical DDoS mitigation standpoint, one of the primary skills you need to have is pattern recognition.
Being able to spot repetitions that signify a DDoS attack is taking place is key, especially in the initial stages. Automated applications and AI are often used as helpers, but generally companies need a skilled IT professional to differentiate between legitimate traffic and a DDoS attack. DDoS mitigation is quite different than mitigating other cyberattacks, such as those originating from ransomware. DDoS attacks are generally mitigated by devices and services that have been enabled to handle these types of attacks.
Other devices can be used as intermediaries, including firewalls and dedicated scrubber appliances. When trying to mitigate a DDoS attack, you want to focus on placing services and devices between your network and the systems being used to attack you.
You must create an intermediate mitigation solution to respond to that attack instead. In a ransomware or malware attack, security professionals generally solve the problem by upgrading the software on end points or restoring from backup. Early detection is critical for defending against a DDoS attack. Look for warning signs, provided above, that you may be a target. DDoS detection may involve investigating the content of packets to detect Layer 7 and protocol-based attacks or utilizing rate-based measures to detect volumetric attacks.
Rate-based detection is usually discussed first when it comes to DDoS attacks, but most effective DDoS attacks are not blocked using rate-based detection.
A transparent filtering process helps to drop the unwanted traffic. This is done by installing effective rules on network devices to eliminate the DDoS traffic. You can redirect DDoS traffic by sending it into a scrubbing center or other resource that acts as a sinkhole. Understanding where the DDoS attack originated is important.
This knowledge can help you develop protocols to proactively protect against future attacks. While it may be tempting to try and kill off the botnet, it can create logistical problems and may result in legal ramifications.
Generally, it is not recommended. It is possible to use alternate resources that can almost instantaneously offer new content or open up new networking connections in the event of an attack. One of the best ways to mitigate a DDoS attack is to respond as a team and collaborate during the incident response process. The steps outlined above can only be achieved through a combination of services, devices and individuals working together. For example, to mitigate Layer 7 DDoS attacks it is often necessary to do the following:.
Prepare for the fight! Hundreds of organizations provide devices and services intended to help you prevent or combat a DDoS attack. A small sample of these services and devices is shown below. Offers protection against Layer 3 and Layer 4 attacks.
Available to all customers at no extra charge. Additional protection for Layer 7 attacks is available for a fee. Solutions include cloud-based, on-premise and hybrid protection completely focused on thwarting DDoS attacks. Layer 3, 4 and 7 services for free, as well as more sophisticated DDoS protection services for a fee. Click the red plus signs for more details on the eight ways you can prepare for a DDoS attack. Business-critical services are those that would cause operational delays if affected.
These might include systems such as database, web, commerce server, customer relationship management CRM , custom programming, AI, machine learning, streaming and data collection, among others.
It may also be necessary to outline all business-critical applications running on your web servers. You can then make decisions based on the sample matrix, located below. Store mission-critical information in a CDN to allow your organization to reduce response and recovery time. As an alternate or complementary solution, you could also engage a third-party scrubbing service that filters out DDoS traffic.
A DDoS preparation scheme will always identify the risk involved when specific resources become compromised. The last thing an organization wants to do is assign responsibility for DDoS response during or after an actual attack.
Assign responsibility before an attack happens. Similar to other areas of expertise, the best way to know how to respond to a DDoS attack is to practice. Schedule dedicated training sessions and practice combatting attacks in a controlled environment.
When dealing with a DDoS attack, there are certain best practices that can help keep a situation under control. With so many as-a-service options, it can be difficult to know which services to engage as part of an effective DDoS prevention strategy.
This DDoS mitigation matrix should help you understand how to place your services appropriately. Your matrix would, of course, vary according to your business-critical resources. If you purchase a costly mitigation device or service, you need someone in your organization with enough knowledge to configure and manage it. Imperva provides protection for websites and web applications, networks and subnets, domain name servers DNS , and individual IP addresses.
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