Posted on July 27, 2018 at 6:07 PM
Linux is the Tool of Choice for DDoS Attacks
Hackers and online criminals are using flaws more than 30 years old to cause havoc in the online world. Kaspersky Lab states in a report that, it is mainly done by using Linux. It’s possible that up to 95% of the attacks are made using Linux.
The bug has been known since the change of the millennium and involves a UPnP vulnerability to force DDoS attacks upon their targets.
Another attack was brought up to attention, involving a flaw in the CHARGEN protocol – this has been known as a vulnerability since 1983.
CHARGEN protocol servers are commonly used for printers and copying machines since the beginning, and can commonly be found out in the open all around the web.
On the other hand, Windows’ popularity as a hacker tool was really never large, but it has decreased even further, and the report states that in the last quarter it has decreased by 85% in uses related to DDoS attacks. More and more people are using Linux instead of Windows for these forms of attack in the last year. The interest in using Linux for SYN flood attacks has also increased rapidly, and up to 80% of these now come from Linux botnets.
It is nothing new that Asia has been the target of many of these attacks with China, Hong Kong, and United States and taking the three unwanted top spots, thereby knocking down South Korea to the top spot outside of the podium.
On the other end of it, United States has the biggest share of DDoS botnet C&C servers, racking up 45% of the hacker hardware. Vietnam was the only new country added to the top 10 list, while Hong Kong seems to be a target more than a hive for hackers, dropping out of the top 10 list.
The project manager on the Kaspersky DDoS Protection team, Alexey Kiselev, says that while it isn’t uncommon to use DDoS attacks to cause political and social havoc, it’s still a lot more common to use these flaws simply to try to make money, and companies with a high flow of money are usually the main targets.
DDoS attacks are not always malicious by themselves but can be used to hide other operations elsewhere in the network while getting all the attention away from the criminals’ real intentions. It is very possible to get away with multiple millions of dollars through a well placed DDoS attack, and making sure that your network is safe is possibly the best insurance.
Another recent new invention that has been a target of a multitude of various attacks is the cryptocurrency industry. Not only are the exchanges targetted by people trying to rip them off all the money, huge mining pools have also been targetted. NiceHash, which is the biggest software used for GPU miners, lost up to $60 million in an attack late in 2017.
Even a few coins suffer from DDoS based attacks, where people try to overtake 51% of the hashing power, rendering them able to replace the blockchain and trick the other miners to believe that the false blockchain is the correct one while adding funds to their own pockets.
Verge was the last larger coin to suffer from one of these attacks while losing over $30 million from its legitimate holders, but they are not that uncommon in smaller currencies.
Cryptoland is really a place you should avoid unless you know how to protect yourself properly and take safety measures.
Other very popular targets for DDoS attacks are gaming tournaments in the eSport world. Attacks are made to collect ransom from tournament holders and even the gamers themselves. If you’re in a team of five players and two of them loses the connection during a game, things get very rough for the affected team.
