DDoS Attack

Verisign’s Perspective on Recent Root Server Attacks

On Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, 2015, some of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) root name servers received large amounts of anomalous traffic. Last week the root server operators published a report on the incident. In the interest of further transparency, I'd like to take this opportunity to share Verisign's perspective, including how we identify, handle and react, as necessary, to events such as this.

RIPE 71 Meeting Report

The RIPE 71 meeting took place in Bucharest, Romania in November. Here are my impressions from a number of the sessions I attended that I thought were of interest. It was a relatively packed meeting held over 5 days. So this is by no means all that was presented through the week... As is usual for RIPE meetings, it was a well organised, informative and fun meeting to attend in every respect! If you are near Copenhagen in late May next year I'd certainly say that it would be a week well spent.

NANOG 65 Report

NANOG 65 was once again your typical NANOG meeting: a set of operators, vendors, researchers and others for 3 days, this time in Montreal in October. Here's my impressions of the meeting... The opening keynote was from Jack Waters from Level 3, which looked back over the past 25 years of the Internet, was interesting to me in its reference to the "Kingsbury Letter".

Thoughts on the Open Internet - Part 5: Security

Any form of public communications network necessarily exposes some information about the identity and activity of the user's of its services. The extent to which such exposure of information can be subverted and used in ways that are in stark opposition to the users' individual interests forms part of the motivation on the part of many users to reduce such open exposure to an absolute minimum. The tensions between a desire to protect the user through increasing the level of opacity of network transactions to third party surveillance, and the need to expose some level of basic information to support the functions of a network lies at the heart of many of the security issues in today's Internet.

Watch Live Oct 1 - Dyn’s Techtoberfest: Internet Trends, Security, Net Neutrality and More

On Thursday, Oct 1, 2015, from 9:30am-4:30pm US EDT (UTC-4), Dyn will be holding their "TechToberFest" event in Manchester, NH, and also streaming the video live for anyone interested. There are a great set of speakers and a solid agenda. As I wrote on the Internet Society blog, I'll be part of the security panel from 3-4pm US EDT... and we who are on the panel are excited to participate just for the conversation that we are going to have! It should be fun!

Can We Stop IP Spoofing? A New Whitepaper Explores the Issues

In March 2013, Spamhaus was hit by a significant DDoS attack that made its services unavailable. The attack traffic reportedly peaked at 300Gbps with hundreds of millions of packets hitting network equipment on their way. In Q1 2015, Arbor Networks reported a 334Gbps attack targeting a network operator Asia. In the same quarter they also saw 25 attacks larger than 100Gbps globally. What is really frightening about this is that such attacks were relatively easy to mount.

The Internet of Things: When Sci-Fi Becomes Reality

In my last blog post I shared some of the general security challenges that come with the Internet of Things (IoT). In this post, I will focus on one particular security risk: distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Even before the age of IoT, DDoS attacks have been turning multitudes of computers into botnets, attacking a single target and causing denial of services for the target's users. By "multitudes" we can be talking about thousands or even millions of victim devices. Now add IoT into the equation...

Understanding the Threat Landscape: Basic Methodologies for Tracking Attack Campaigns

The indicators of compromise (IOCs) outlined in my last blog post can be used as a baseline for developing intrusion sets and tracking attack campaigns and threat actors. When launching an attack, threat actors use a variety of vectors and infrastructure, which Verisign iDefense analysts -- as well as analysts across the cybersecurity community -- correlate to group attacks, tracking actors and determining attack methods.

Understanding the Threat Landscape: Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

I previously provided a brief overview of how Verisign iDefense characterizes threat actors and their motivations through adversarial analysis. Not only do security professionals need to be aware of the kinds of actors they are up against, but they should also be aware of the tactical data fundamentals associated with cyber-attacks most commonly referred to as indicators of compromise (IOCs). Understanding the different types of tactical IOCs can allow for quick detection of a breach...

Understanding the Threat Landscape: Cyber-Attack Actors and Motivations

The threat landscape has rapidly expanded over the past few years, and shows no signs of contracting. With major establishments in both the public and private sectors falling victim to cyber-attacks, it is critical for organizations to identify the motivations, modus operandi (MO) and objectives of adversaries in order to adequately and effectively defend their networks. Understanding the taxonomy of cyber-attacks is the first step in preparing an organization against exposure to them.