Burma Cut Off From Internet By DDOS Attack

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that started in late October have succeeded to cut off Burma from access to the internet only days ahead of the first national election in 20 years. This on top of foreign journalists and observers being denied entry into the country and you can make a compelling case for an inside job.

The BBC says in it's report:

It will raise suspicions that Burma's military authorities could be trying to restrict the flow of information over the election period.

The ruling generals say the polls will mark a transition to democratic civilian rule.

But as the BBC's Sue Lloyd-Roberts reports from Burma, many believe the election is a sham designed to cement the military's grip on power.

This truly illustrates the fear that these regimes have over their inability to control the flow of information within their borders and beyond, in an information age. I think it also shows the power of the citizen journalist and while they may have stemmed the flow, I'm pretty sure that this bandaid solution is little more than a finger in the dike and that they may have slowed the flow of information but it has not been stopped completely. Regardless, the international community will be watching and I hope will act accordingly. The biggest problem is that the people of Burma will no doubt be denied their voice in the mean while.

Source: BBC

Twitter, Facebook, And Others Affected By DOS Attack

A "single, massively coordinated attack" appears to have been the cause of problems experienced by users of Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Blogger yesterday. CNet news is reporting that a pro-Georgian blogger with accounts on all 4 of these sites was the primary target of a denial of service attack that affected traffic to the sites for much of the day Wednesday.

In a post on the official Twitter Blog, Biz Stone writes "Please note that no user data was compromised in this attack. This activity is about saturating a service with so many requests that it cannot respond to legitimate requests thereby denying service to intended customers or users.

We've worked hard to achieve technical stability and we're proud of our Engineering and Operations teams. Nevertheless, today's massive, globally distributed attack was a reminder that there's still lots of work ahead."

Max Kelly, chief security officer at Facebook, told CNET News.

"It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him (the pro Georgian blogger Cyxymu) to keep his voice from being heard," Kelly said. "We're actively investigating the source of the attacks and we hope to be able to find out the individuals involved in the back end and to take action against them if we can."

North Suspected In South Korea / US Denial Of Service Attacks

The South Korean government is warning that about 20,000 computers infected by a virus as part of an alleged denial of service (DOS) attack are expected to have their data destroyed by the vicious code, starting today. The DOS affected high profile sites in both South Korea and the United States including the South Korean Spy Agency, a bank and a top newspaper as well as the US Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and the Transportation Department.

According to the CBC "Hong Hyun-ik, an analyst at the Sejong Institute think-tank, said the attack could have been done by either North Korea or China, adding that he "heard North Korea has been working hard to hack into" South Korean networks."

Xbox Live Gamers Targeted

Using a traditional denial of service style attack, hackers are seeking revenge on players who pown them during game play on the Xbox Live network according to Chris Boyd the director of malware research at Facetime Communications. "They get your IP address, put it in the booter tool and they attempt to flood the port that uses Xbox traffic," said Mr Boyd. "Flooding that port prevents any traffic getting out." The tool doesn't attack the Xbox live network but idividual gamer's Xbox's because many of the games played on the network are actually hosted by the players themselves. In order to carry out the attack the hacker might interconnect their PC and Xbox and then deploy packet sniffing software to sift through the traffic flowing in and out of their consoles for IP addresses. Microsoft promises to ban the offenders.

Source: BBC

CNN Website Attacked

In a story on cnn.com the network quoted a CNN spokesperson as saying "CNN took preventative measures to filter traffic in response to attempts to disrupt our Web site. A small percentage of CNN.com users in Asia are impacted". The attack was said to have taken place on Thursday, and administrators took measures to counter the attack and isolate the trouble. The result was a slowdown in service to users in some geographic locations. The spokesperson added "We do not know who is responsible, nor can we confirm where it came from," but the attack comes on the heels of calls for denial of service attacks by hacker groups in China over CNN's coverage of the situation in Tibet. Chinese hacker groups... hmm.

When Bots Attack - from the pages of Wired

Wired magazine walks us through an interesting denial of service scenario in their article "When Bots Attack". The hypothetical scenario sets up how a country's information infrastructure could be brought to it's knees for hours or even days through a distributed denial of service attack. "Using rented botnets, you can launch hundreds of thousands — even millions — of infobombs at a target, all while maintaining total deniability." It's a short read but an interesting one.