Internet Being Probed With a View To Taking It Down

Following the news that the Internet’s underlying infrastructure is being probed for vulnerabilities by unknown attackers using sophisticated DDoS attacks, Sean Newman, Director at Corero Network Security commented below.

Sean Newman, Director at Corero Network Security:

“As security professionals, much of what we see in relation to cyber-attacks, of all types, points to increased sophistication.  Whether stealing critical information, or causing disruption, attackers are increasingly surgical and stealthy as they build up to and execute their attacks.

“At Corero, we see this play out on a daily basis and have repeatedly highlighted the trend for DDoS attacks to be sub-saturating and short in duration, which is consistent with attackers either testing out their targets, or already having done so, and knowing just exactly how much traffic is needed to cripple them.

“This trend is certainly a challenge for any organizations, or providers, relying on legacy scrubbing-center approaches to DDoS protection, as these are typically based on an assumption that DDoS consists of attacks which are saturating and/or prolonged in nature – these solutions are not inline, or real-time, and are typically limited in capacity, hence they cannot effectively deal with the proliferation of these surgical attacks.

“And, whilst these attacks are not being blocked, it is easy for the perpetrators to continue their reconnaissance, with the potential to wreak havoc across the internet.”