DDos Attack Protection

Park Dong-hoon, the president of the Korea Information Security Industry Association, made a keynote speech at the 2009 Korea Information Telecommunication Facilities Engineering fall seminar on Nov 19. The presentation covered the current status and problems of knowledge information security regarding to recent DDoS crisis.

With the development of IT technology, people are now living in a ubiquitous environment where everything is connected such as cellphones, computers, and mobile devices. However, more information through various networks created more demand for security. As the network became bigger and more complex, the trend in security is also changing from technical network protection to service security. Most people have some type of information stored in more than one network and many businesses have crucial information to protect. Due to the increase of cyber crimes, the knowledge information security industry has risen and it will continue to grow to be a convergence security industry. The information security industry is defined as the industry providing services to prevent crimes and disasters through security technology like passwords, encoding, surveillance, and recognition. The industry consists of information security, physical security and convergence security.

The potential for knowledge information security is tremendous. The estimated global market for 2013 is expected to be US$368 billion. Currently, the market is dominated by the US and EU at 88%. Korea has only 1.7% of global market share. The Korean knowledge information security market is estimated at W3.1 trillion in 2007, but it is expected to reach W18.4 trillion by 2013. For information security, most high-end security hardware is imported, but Korean software is exported to Japan, the US and other countries. For physical security, the market has expanded with 32% of annual growth. The 2009 market analysis showed that law enforcement has been strengthened due to several major information theft cases. Also, the public and finance sectors plan to establish the convergence security business against DDoS attacks and the industry will get bigger through M&A.

There have been several major security breaches since 2008 – the Blue House hacking, auction.com with over 10 million id thefts, Hanaro Telecom with 6 million id thefts, GS Caltex with 1.1 mil id thefts, and the 7/7 DDoS attack crisis. These types of cases show how vulnerable sites are with low security levels. The government does not have enough human resources in the security department. Many companies do not recognize security as investment but an expense. Also, most computer users do not use anti-virus programs, and their computers are exposed to hackers and are sometimes used as zombie PCs. The level of security systems does not meet the demand for increased internet use. The R&D investment is about 1,000 times less compared to the US, based on a 2007 survey. The solution for increasing cyber attacks is to establish a cyber crisis management system and produce more security professionals with more investment. The collaboration efforts between public and private sectors will help the security industry to grow.

Tags: attacks, DDOS attack, DDoS Attacks, Hackers, Internet, Security
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Cloud computing users face problems including loss of control over data, difficulties proving compliance, and additional legal risks as data moves from one legal jurisdiction to another, according to a assessement of cloud computing risks from the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA).

The agency highlighted those problems as having the most serious consequences and being among the most likely for companies using cloud computing services, according to ENISA.

ENISA examined the assets that companies put at risk when they turn to cloud computing, including customer data and their own reputation; the vulnerabilities that exist in cloud computing systems; the risks to which those vulnerabilities expose businesses, and the probabilities that those risks will occur.

When moving to cloud-based computing services, companies have to hand over control to the cloud provider on a number of issues, which may affect security negatively. For example, the provider’s terms of use may not allow port scans, vulnerability assessment and penetration testing. At the same time, service level agreements (SLAs) may not include those services. The result is a gap in defenses, ENISA said in the report.

Compliance could also prove to be a big problem if the provider can’t offer the right levels of certification or the certification scheme hasn’t been adapted for cloud services, the report said.

One of the advantages of cloud services is that data can be stored in multiple locations, which could save the day in the event of an incident in one of the data centers. However, it could also be a big risk if the data centers are located in countries with a shaky legal system, according to the report.

Other areas of concern are vendor lock-in, failure of mechanisms separating different companies, management interfaces that get accessed by hackers, data not deleted properly and malicious insiders.

To minimize these risks the report proposes a list of questions that a company needs to ask potential cloud providers. For example, what guarantees does the provider offer that customer resources are fully isolated, what security education program does it run for staff, what measures are taken to ensure third-party service levels are met, and so on.

In the end a good contract can lessen the risks, according to the report. Companies should especially pay attention to their rights and obligations related to data transfers, access to data by law enforcement and notifications of breaches in security, it said.

ENISA’s report isn’t all doom and gloom, though. Using cloud computing services can result in more robust, scalable and cost-effective defenses against certain kinds of attack, according to the report. For example, the ability to dynamically allocate resources could provide better protection against DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks, ENISA said.

Tags: attacks, customer data, face problems, Hackers, probabilities, security agency, vulnerabilities
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A WHOIS domain search is an online utility that everyone can use to conduct a domain name search. When a search is conducted, private information about the domain name can be found. Such information can be useful for several parties.

The webmaster.

As the webmaster of the website, you can do a WHOIS search to find out if the domain name servers have been updated. Usually, a DNS change takes just several hours. In rare cases, it can take up to 48 hours. When the update is completed, the primary and secondary DNS will show up in the search results. This is a clear indication that the update has been completed.

The domain name buyer.

An individual may be interested in a domain name, but the name is already registered. By conducting a WHOIS search, the interested buyer can find out when the domain is expiring. He may then try to buy the domain if it’s not renewed. Alternatively, he may try to contact the domain owner directly by writing an email to the owner. Contact information is available with the search.

The spammer.

Spammers like to conduct WHOIS search to harvest email addresses. They then send unsolicited emails to these addresses in an attempt to market some product or service. The act of sending a spam email is illegal. Still, thousands of spam emails go out everyday because it is very hard for the authorities to catch up with the spammers.

The hackers.

This malicious group of individuals make a WHOIS search to find out where a website is hosted (based on the DNS). They then try to attack the servers. One popular method include a DDOS attack. Hackers send data packets to the servers until the servers slow down to a crawl. If protection software is not installed, the server can be crippled for hours.

As you can see, some people use the information for commercial purposes, while others use it for malicious purposes. You want to avoid attracting attention from the spammers and hackers. The only way you can do that, is to protect your domain name information. You can do so by signing up for domain privacy. This requires you to pay a small fee, but if you don’t want to reveal your personal details, it’s a useful little feature.

After you have signed up for the feature, your information will not be revealed in a WHOIS search. All the server info, personal emails and addresses will be kept private and confidential. This is one measure you can take to ensure that your website stays secure. For someone who intends to do mischief on your site, they will have problems acquiring the necessary information.

Protecting personal information is important and it entails the safety of you and your family members. So paying a small fee for the domain privacy may be worth it.

Domain registration details can be revealed via WHOIS search. Protect your personal details with domain privacy feature. Ipage hosting and ipage domain info are posted in thisipage coupon and review website.

Tags: buyer, Hackers, spammer, webmaster
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Hackers could one day turn ordinary smartphones into “rogue” devices to attack major wireless networks, Research In Motion’s security chief warned.

Scott Totzke, RIM’s vice-president of BlackBerry security, said hackers could use smartphones to target wireless carriers using a technique similar to one used in assaults that slowed Internet traffic in the United States and South Korea in July.

In what’s known as a distributed denial of service, or a DDOS attack, criminals use phone signals to order tens of thousands computers to contact a targeted site repeatedly, slowing it or eventually crashing it.

”I think that’s an area of concern,” Totzke said in an interview this week at the company’s headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario.

Totzke said a technique involving data packets might be used to bring down a wireless network, though hackers might accomplish that using a relatively small number of smartphones.

Malicious software that could launch such attacks would likely come from applications that smartphone users install on their devices, said Kevin Mahaffey, chief technology officer at Flexilis, a mobile security software maker.

Flexilis researchers have already identified virus-tainted versions of popular smartphone applications such as Google Inc’s Google Maps software and computer games.

”These are not telephones anymore. These are computers. So people are going to have all the problems on their phones that they have on their computers,” Mahaffey said.

The best way to protect against such an attack is through regularly applying security patches, which smartphone makers such as RIM release as they identify potential security flaws in their devices, Totzke said.

Tags: attacks, DDOS attack, Hackers, horizon
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