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Showing posts from February, 2020

IoT insecurity fuels the fire

The expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) has played a major role in the recent growth of DDoS attacks. Many of these devices forgo security because of reliance on default credentials, making them easy game for botnet viruses. Denial of service attack prevention “Mirai was a turning point highlighting the power of DDoS botnets comprised of IoT devices,” Patrick Sullivan, Akamai’s senior director of security strategy, told The Daily Swig. The Mirai botnet was behind a major DDoS attack against DNS provider Dyn, which caused a major internet outage in October 2016. The botnet comprised a large number of internet-connected cameras, home routers, and baby monitors. “Not only do the sheer number of vulnerable IoT devices present a challenge, but attacker willingness to use these bots to perform Application Layer Attacks leads to higher levels of sophistication,” Sullivan said.

What is the history of DDoS?

According to Wikipedia , the first demonstration of a DDoS attack was made by hacker Khan C. Smith in 1997 during a DEF CON event, disrupting Internet access to the Las Vegas Strip for over an hour. The release of sample code during the event led to the online attack of Sprint, EarthLink, E-Trade, and other major corporations in the year to follow. Know more:  what are ddos attacks ? In early 2000, Canadian teen hacker Michael Calce upped the DDoS ante and made a big impression on the business community by bringing down Yahoo! with a DDoS—a feat he repeated in the week that followed by disrupting other major sites such as Amazon, CNN, and eBay. The general threshold of effort it takes for a hacker to arrange a DDoS has only decreased in difficulty with reports of cybergangs renting out botnets for as little as $10-per-hour. Finally, as we have entered the Internet of Things (IoT) era, almost any Internet-connected device such as smartphones, security cameras, routers, and prin