Neustar’s Ted Swearingen Advises on Defense Against DDoS Attacks

According to Neustar director of security operations, Ted Swearingen, small and midsize businesses need to be prepared for Denial of Service attack with an “instant response plan.”

“If you don’t plan, when you do actually have an event your response time and general reaction will be much more chaotic, and you’ll have a much harder time defending against…

FBI’s Civilian Volunteer Watchdog Website Hacked, Defaced

Hacker group LulzSec said it broke into the website of InfraGard Atlanta, the local branch of the FBI’s civilian watchdog that works to fight terrorist threats, defaced it and leaked 180 usernames and passwords of members, CNET reports.

Visitors to InfragardAtlanta.org were last Friday met with a non-English language video and the message “Let it flow you stupid FBI battleships,” CNET said.

Passwords from what seemed…

Turkish Daily Cyber Attacked

The website of the Istanbul-based left-wing Birgün newspaper was hit Monday by a distributed denial-of-service attack, making access to the site near-impossible, BIA News reports.

Birgun.net has been the target of similar attacks in the past and is now working on determining the source and on preventing more attacks.

“We encounter this situation only one day after tens of thousands of people took the street [to…

Canadian ISP Knocked Offline after DDoS Attack

Canadian internet service provider Islandnet.com was hit with a cyber attack Wednesday and knocked offline until today, according to Canadian news reports.

Vancouver Sun said the Victoria-based ISP tweeted it had suffered a distributed denial-of-service attack Wednesday morning.

The attack took down Island Net’s website and impacted its customers as well, including Thrifty Foods, Smoking Lily  and Cangeneology.

Describing the onslaught of attacks, Islandnet owner Mark Morley told Goldstream News…

Industry Expert: No to Obligatory Info Sharing within Private Sector

Changing law that would demand industry to share more cybersecurity information among companies will not lead to more secure networks, according to AT&T Chief Security Officer Ed Amoroso.

When there is talk about information sharing, it sounds great, “like saying you should love your mom and eat apple pie,” Amoroso said…

Cyber Attack Cripples Radio Netherlands Websites

Websites operated by Radio Netherlands Worldwide were paralyzed for nearly a day after an onslaught of distributed denial-of  services attacks launched yesterday.

The cyber attack, which prevented tens of thousands of users from accessing RNW’s online news and feature services, demonstrates how vulnerable new media can be, said Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s Managing Director Jan Hoek.

“RNW is an international organization and free speech is of the utmost importance to us,”…

Anonymous Launches OpIran

Hacktivist collective Anonymous has announced OpIran, a new campaign designed to launch denial-of-service attacks at Iranian websites, according to news reports.

Addressing the Iranian people, a post on AnonNews.org noted how “an era of change is sweeping the world,” and workers everywhere are taking their place to lead and control their destiny.

“The people of Iran have the admiration of Anonymous, and the entire world,” the release said….

Social Justice Website Cyber Attacked for Supporting Chinese Dissident

A San Francisco-based website promoting social justice has been targeted by hackers for its support of a Chinese dissident, the San Francisco Examiner reported.

Change.org founder Ben Rattray asked the U.S. State Department to condemn the “highly sophisticated” attacks, which he said began after the website’s petitioned to free Ai WeiWei, an artist and outspoken critic of the Chinese government.

The site was hit by an…

Neustar Launches DDoS Protection Solution

Neustar, Inc. (NYSE: NSR) yesterday announced the launch of SiteProtect, a cloud-based service for UltraDNS customers that ups the security against distributed denial-of-service attacks on online properties.

SiteProtect allows customers’ web infrastructure to operate normally under attack, thus avoiding downtime and the associated loss of potential revenue. Combined with Neustar…

South Korea under DDoS Bombardment

Forty websites belonging to the South Korean government, agencies and businesses came under attack yesterday, including those of the presidential Blue House, the U.S. forces, the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, the ministries of foreign affairs, defense and unification, the intelligence agency, parliament and the tax office, AFP reported.

Cybersecurity company AhnLab confirmed the websites had been hit by DDoS attacks and estimated that up to…