Prolexic Issues Warning: Growing Trend in Fraud, Identity Theft Being Camouflaged by DDoS Attacks
August 28, 2013 --
HOLLYWOOD,
Fla., Aug. 28, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Prolexic, the global leader in
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection services, today shared
attack signatures and details that are helpful to detect and
stop DDoS attacks
from the Drive DDoS toolkit, an attack tool often used as a source of
distraction while criminals break into customer accounts at finance
firms and e-Commerce businesses.
DDoS attacks from
the Drive DDoS toolkit and other variants of the Dirt Jumper toolkit can
sidetrack IT security personnel while criminals attempt to transfer
funds out of bank accounts, gather passwords for later use, or place
unauthorized orders. Because attacks from this criminal DDoS toolkit are
associated with identity theft, recognizing the Drive toolkit as the
source of a DDoS attack can lead financial institutions, banking,
insurance, investment firms, brokerages or e-Commerce firms to suspect
and investigate possible fraudulent access of customer accounts that may
have occurred during the attack.
"During the
confusion of a DDoS attack, malicious actors can break into the
financial and e-Commerce accounts of customers without being noticed,"
warned Stuart Scholly, President at Prolexic. "IT departments are
typically so focused on the damage caused by the DDoS attack that they
don't realize it may merely be a planned distraction while criminals
loot customer accounts."
New signatures, communication patterns
The Drive toolkit, which is being leaked in
underground hacking forums, has been the source of multiple recent DDoS
attacks observed by the Prolexic Security Engineering and Response Team
(PLXsert). The tool is a newer variant of the Dirt Jumper family of DDoS
toolkits, one of the most popular denial of service attack tools in use
today.
"In recent weeks, Prolexic has detected, stopped
and mitigated DDoS attacks launched against our clients from the Drive
DDoS toolkit," said Scholly. "Although these attacks are cousins to Dirt
Jumper DDoS toolkit, they have new signatures and communication
patterns. In all cases, Prolexic mitigated attacks from the new toolkit
in minutes, as promised in our service level agreement."
Attacks target Web applications
Six
types of DDoS attacks are built into the Drive toolkit, allowing
attackers to launch a variety DDoS attacks. The tool features
GET floods,
POST floods, POST2 floods, IP floods and IP2 floods directed at the application layer as well as
UDP floods, which target network infrastructure. Encryption allows malicious actors to hide their identities.
"Companies
often don't realize they are under attack from the Drive toolkit,
because application attacks increase server utilization without
excessive network traffic," Scholly added. "The information in the
threat advisory can help detect these attacks quickly."
DDoS threat advisory
An
analysis of the Drive threat, including screenshots, launch commands,
sample payloads and identifying signatures to enable DDoS mitigation
techniques, is available free of charge in
Prolexic's Drive DDoS Threat Advisory at
http://www.prolexic.com/drive-ddos.
Prolexic Threat Advisories
Designed
to provide early warnings of new or modified DDoS attack signatures and
scripts recently observed by PLXsert, threat advisories contains
descriptions of the type of attack, attack signatures, and the network
infrastructure or application that it targets. In addition, Prolexic's
DDoS mitigation experts also offer insight into the nature of each type
of attack and provide warnings as to how the attack will affect
businesses and enterprises of different sizes and infrastructures.
PLXsert also provides tips to help subscribers not only recognize the
new attack signatures, but also proactively defend against them. The
latest threat advisories, including itsoknoproblembro and Pandora, are
available to the public at
www.prolexic.com/threatadvisories.
About Prolexic
Prolexic
is the world's largest, most trusted Distributed Denial of Service
(DDoS) mitigation provider. Able to absorb the largest and most complex
attacks ever launched, Prolexic restores mission-critical
Internet-facing infrastructures for global enterprises and government
agencies within minutes. Ten of the world's largest banks and the
leading companies in e-Commerce, SaaS, payment processing,
travel/hospitality, gaming, energy and other at-risk industries rely on
Prolexic to protect their businesses. Founded in 2003 as the world's
first in-the-cloud DDoS mitigation platform, Prolexic is headquartered
in Hollywood, Florida, and has scrubbing centers located in the
Americas, Europe and Asia. To learn more about how Prolexic can stop
DDoS attacks and protect your business, please visit
www.prolexic.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, and @Prolexic on Twitter.
###
Contact:
Michael E. Donner
SVP, Chief Marketing Officer
Prolexic
Media {at} prolexic {dot} com
+1 (954) 620 6017
CONTACT: Michael E. Donner
SVP, Chief Marketing Officer
Prolexic
Media {at} prolexic {dot} com
+1 (954) 620 6017
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