Distributed Denial of Service – The Media Threat

With more media turning to websites to distribute the news, is the fourth estate at an increased risk from malicious distributed denial of service attacks?

When the Telegraph website was blocked for 24 hours, it raised fears across the UK media that they could be held to ransom at the whim of malicious hackers. Using a distributed denial of service attack, the Telegraph website became inaccessible raising fears that hackers could use terrorist tactics to stop certain stories from being published online.

Distributed denial of service hits the fourth estate
The distributed denial of service threat is a very real one from hackers who could be motivated by politics or ideology. The idea that a DDoS attack can target a free press poses serious questions and highlights the need for distributed denial of service protection. The Telegraph said they were a victim of a destructive attack by hackers that was an “act of vandalism”. The attack happened in May, 2007 and lasted 24 hours. A Telegraph spokeswoman told the press: “With these things it’s always difficult to know what might be behind it.”

DDoS mystery attack
The Telegraph said they were confused about who may have wanted to launch a malicious distributed denial of service attack. They had not received any warnings against any particular news stories but did entertain the notion that the distributed denial of service attack may have been a revenge attack. The digital editor of the paper told The Times newspaper: “The nature of these attacks is that they come from multiple sources… We have had them in the past but they have never succeeded in toppling the website. This particular one was stronger than anything we have experienced.”

Distributed denial of service – malicious intent
A denial of service attack consists of hundreds of thousands of computers who have all been instructed to log onto the same site at the same time, often controlled by a virus sent out by hackers.
A "denial of service" attack occurs when hundreds of thousands of computers are directed to log onto a particular site simultaneously, causing it to crash under the weight of requests. The users of the infected computers are unaware they were part of the distributed denial of service attack, but would have been pulled in by an infected email attachment or worm, known as a botnet.

Targeted distributed denial of service attacks
Newspapers are often vulnerable to revenge attacks or are subject to political attacks, making them more susceptible to malicious DDoS attacks. But it is possible to guard against distributed denial of service attacks by employing appropriate security experts. In 2006, the Department of Trade and Industry said half of businesses in the UK had experienced a malicious security incident that could cost companies hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Webscreen is an IT network security technology that is designed to protect Web servers and other network appliances from a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS). A DDoS attack is a deliberate attempt (malicious) to stop a Web site from working by flooding it with thousands or simultaneous connections. This is usually done for financial gain but can be for political or commercial reasons. Webscreen's unique Guarantee of Service (GoS) technology not only mitigates the impact of denial of service (DDoS) attacks but enables IT managers to maintain access for critical users and priority customers during any high level network activity period. Including a range of network optimisation and monitoring tools, Webscreen helps deliver maximum performance from network infrastructure resources. Find out more, contact Webscreen call 0870 3890022.