Posted on 07/14/2009 8:20:23 PM PDT by JoeProBono
A DENIAL OF SERVICE attack which was blamed on the glorious workers of North Korea might have been the work of Blighty hackers.
The attack crippled dozens of US and South Korean web sites last week and Hanoi-based security outfit Bkis has disclosed analysis showing that it used 166,908 botted PCs from 74 countries.
According to USA Today Bkis Security had a look under the bonnet of the attack code and found that it was being controlled through eight control servers, tied into a master server located in the UK and running the Windows Server 2003.
Bkis research director Nguyen Minh Duc said that bots carrying out the attacks were located in South Korea, the United States, China, Japan, Canada, Australia and 68 other nations. However each randomly connected every three minutes to one of the eight control servers to receive instructions on which website to attack next. The control servers, in turn, received commands routed through the master server.
Since the hackers were based in Blighty it should be a doddle for the US and South Korean governments to find out who owns it and get the hackers deported.
Of course just because the master server was located in the UK doesn't mean the attackers were Brits, but it does mean that they should be much easier to find.
Apparently the glorious workers of North Korea have not got the hacking expertise to mount an attack this good.
Another sign it was not the North Koreans was that the bot computers have begun to self destruct and are erasing work files to make the PCs inoperable the next time the user reboots. This indicates a hacker who wants to cover their tracks and wants to threaten commercial files.
Doddle?
I’m hoping that the misdirection in the media was to assist in capturing them.
“get the hackers deported”? What, so they can do their dirty work somewhere else? Um, I don’t think so. How about “get the hackers arrested and put someplace where they get waterboarded six days a week and twice on Sundays”?
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