Aging networking protocols abused in DDoS attacks

May 01, 2013

Aging networking protocols still employed by nearly every Internet-connected device are being abused by hackers to conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.Security vendor Prolexic found that attackers are increasingly using the protocols for what it terms "distributed reflection denial-of-service attacks" (DrDos), where a device is tricked into sending a high volume of traffic to a victim's network."DrDos protocol reflection attacks are possible due to the inherent design of the original architecture," Prolexic wrote in a white paper. "When these protocols were developed, functionality was the main focus, not security."Government organizations, banks and companies are targeted by DDoS attacks for a variety of reasons. Hackers sometimes use DDoS attacks to draw attention away from other mischief or want to disrupt an organization for political or philosophical reasons.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2036943/aging-networking-protocols-abused-in-ddos-attacks.html#tk.rss_all