denial of service

How you may have inadvertently participated in recent DDoS attacks

The risk that an Internet-connected computer is infected with malware will never be reducible to zero. It's just the nature of software that errors happen. Where there are software-design errors, there are people who will exploit those errors to their advantage.

The best PC users can hope for is to minimize the chances of an infection and to mitigate the damage a piece of malware can inflict -- whether it intends to steal a user's sensitive data or to commandeer the machine as part of a cyber attack on servers thousands of miles away.

Last week, Internet users … Read more

Wells Fargo site hit by denial-of-service attack

Wells Fargo was the target of another distributed denial-of-service attack.

The bank's Web site was slowed down by the attack yesterday, affecting a certain number of customers, according to Fox Business News.

"Yesterday we saw an unusually high volume of Web site traffic which we believe was a denial of service attack," a Wells Fargo spokeswoman told CNET today. "The vast majority of customers were not impacted and customer information is safe. For customers who had difficulty accessing the site, we encouraged them to call us by phone, use ATMs or try logging on again as … Read more

GitHub suffers through second day of denial-of-service attacks

GitHub, a leading repository of open-source code, has been hit by two days of denial-of-service attacks.

The attacks, which shut the service down temporarily on Thursday, and which slowed it down today before things returned to normal, were an odd turn of events for a site that's a favorite among coders, and an increasingly popular place to find programming talent.

According to GitHub's Liz Clinkenbeard, the service suffered a "major service interruption" due to a distributed denial-of-service attack yesterday, and a minor interruption on GitHub Pages today due to a denial-of-service attack. The service is back … Read more

HSBC hit by broad denial-of-service attack

If you haven't been able to log into your HSBC online banking account today, you're not alone.

The multinational bank based in the U.K. confirmed this afternoon that it has become the target of a denial-of-service attack that overwhelmed its servers.

This denial-of-service attack did not affect any customer data, but did prevent customers using HSBC online services, including Internet banking.

We are taking appropriate action, working hard to restore service. We are pleased to say that some sites are now back up and running.

We are cooperating with the relevant authorities and will cooperate with other … Read more

Iran may have committed cyber-attack on BBC

Just days after watchdog group Reporters Without Borders named Iran as one of the "Enemies of the Internet," the BBC is now claiming to be the victim of a cyber-attack possibly perpetrated by the Iranian authorities.

The news source says that two of its satellite feeds into Iran were jammed earlier this month coinciding with a denial-of-service attack in which some parts of the BBC's e-mail and Internet services were unavailable. The director-general of the BBC Mark Thompson will be giving a speech to the Royal Television Society shortly, in which he plans to explain how the … Read more

Anonymous urges PayPal boycott, condemns FBI

Anonymous is lashing out today at the FBI and especially at PayPal, urging users of the electronic payments site to dump their accounts.

In its latest "official communique" on behalf of itself and Lulz Security, the hactivist group condemned the FBI for its recent arrests of those charged in connection with hacking attacks by Anonymous in December against PayPal and a host of other companies.

Complaining that the Anonymous "suspects" may face a fine of $500,000 and a possible 15 years of jail time, the group criticized the FBI for equating "adding one's … Read more

U.S. warns of security holes in Chinese SCADA apps

Software made by a Chinese company and used around the world by chemical, defense, and energy companies contains security holes that attackers could exploit to hack into critical systems.

In an advisory issued yesterday (PDF), the Department of Homeland Defense warned of two vulnerabilities in software made by Beijing-based Sunway ForceControl (Google Translate English version). The Chinese company makes SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) software, which is used in computer systems that control and monitor manufacturing plants and equipment used by different industries.

Discovered by security researcher Dillon Beresford of NSS Labs, the security holes could allow cybercriminals to … Read more

Anonymous warns NATO not to challenge it

Responding to a recent report from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization condemning Anonymous, the online "hacktivist" group has issued a public response warning the global organization not to challenge it.

Claiming that the NATO report singled it out as a threat to "government and the people," Anonymous defended some of its recent actions in the name of freedom and dissent. In its message (Google cached version), it also asserted that NATO fears the group not because it's a "threat to society," but because it's a "threat to the established hierarchy."… Read more

Researcher: WebGL poses security threat

A security firm says it's found a vulnerability in the WebGL technology for building accelerated 3D graphics into the Web, a problem that could enable attacks through code executed on a computer's graphics chip.

Attacks could take two basic forms, according to a blog post by Context Information Security. In one, a computer could be rendered useless by visiting a Web page that would execute WebGL software that simply brings the machine to its knees.

In the other, "dangers with WebGL...put users' data, privacy, and security at risk," Context said--specifically, graphics-related information. It posted a … Read more