denial-of-service attacks | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cisco has released updates to address a set of nine security flaws in its Small Business Series Switches that could be exploited by an unauthenticated, remote attacker to run arbitrary code or cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. "These vulnerabilities are due to improper validation of requests that are sent to the web interface," Cisco  said , crediting an unnamed external researcher for reporting the issues. Four of the nine vulnerabilities are rated 9.8 out of 10 on the CVSS scoring system, making them critical in nature. The nine flaws affect the following product lines - 250 Series Smart Switches (Fixed in firmware version 2.5.9.16) 350 Series Managed Switches (Fixed in firmware version 2.5.9.16) 350X Series Stackable Managed Switches (Fixed in firmware version 2.5.9.16) 550X Series Stackable Managed Switches (Fixed in firmware version 2.5.9.16) Business 250 Series Smart Switches (Fixed in firmware version 3.3.0.16) Business 350 Series Managed Switches (F

Threat actors flooded the npm open source package repository for Node.js with bogus packages that briefly even resulted in a denial-of-service (DoS) attack. "The threat actors create malicious websites and publish empty packages with links to those malicious websites, taking advantage of open-source ecosystems' good reputation on search engines," Checkmarx's Jossef Harush Kadouri  said  in a report published last week. "The attacks caused a denial-of-service (DoS) that made NPM unstable with sporadic 'Service Unavailable' errors." While  similar campaigns  were recently observed propagating phishing links, the latest wave pushed the number of package versions to 1.42 million, a dramatic uptick from the approximate 800,000 packages released on npm. The attack technique leverages the fact that open source repositories are ranked higher on search engine results to create rogue websites and upload empty npm modules with links to those sites in the

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard human identities, a pressing question arises: How do we guarantee the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities devoid of life but crucial for the functioning of critical systems? Let's break it down. The challenge Imagine a cloud-native application as a bustling metropolis of tiny neighborhoods known as microservices, all neatly packed into containers. These microservices function akin to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its designated task, be it processing data, verifying credentials, or

Various implementations of HTTP/2 , the latest version of the HTTP network protocol, have been found vulnerable to multiple security vulnerabilities affecting the most popular web server software, including Apache, Microsoft's IIS, and NGINX. Launched in May 2015, HTTP/2 has been designed for better security and improved online experience by speeding up page loads. Today, over hundreds of millions of websites, or some 40 percent of all the sites on the Internet, are running using HTTP/2 protocol. A total of eight high-severity HTTP/2 vulnerabilities , seven discovered by Jonathan Looney of Netflix and one by Piotr Sikora of Google, exist due to resource exhaustion when handling malicious input, allowing a client to overload server's queue management code. The vulnerabilities can be exploited to launch Denial of Service (DoS) attacks against millions of online services and websites that are running on a web server with the vulnerable implementation of HTTP/2 , knocking

A simple DDoS attack could land you in jail for 10 years or even more. A Massachusetts man has been sentenced to over 10 years in prison for launching DDoS attacks against the computer network of two healthcare organizations in 2014 to protest the treatment of a teenager at the centers. Beyond serving 121 months in prison, Martin Gottesfeld , 34, was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton to pay nearly $443,000 in restitution for damages he caused to the targeted facilities. Gottesfeld carried out the DDoS attacks on behalf of the Anonymous hacker collective against Boston Children's Hospital (BCH) and Wayside Youth & Family Support Network—a nonprofit home treatment facility that provides a range of mental health counselings to children, young adults, and families in Massachusetts. In April 2014, the hacker used a botnet of over 40,000 network routers that he infected with customized malicious software to carry out the DDoS attacks that not only knocke

Security researchers have discovered not one or two, but a total of seven security vulnerabilities in the popular open source Dnsmasq network services software, three of which could allow remote code execution on a vulnerable system and hijack it. Dnsmasq is a widely used lightweight network application tool designed to provide DNS (Domain Name System) forwarder, DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server, router ads and network boot services for small networks. Dnsmasq comes pre-installed on various devices and operating systems, including Linux distributions such as Ubuntu and Debian, home routers, smartphones and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. A shodan scan for "Dnsmasq" reveals around 1.1 million instances worldwide. Recently, Google's security team reviewed Dnsmasq and discovered seven security issues, including DNS-related remote code execution, information disclosure, and denial-of-service (DoS) issues that can be triggered via DNS or DHCP. &q

Yes, you only need a single laptop with a decent internet connection, rather a massive botnet, to launch overwhelming denial of service (DoS) attacks in order to bring down major Internet servers and modern-day firewalls. Researchers at TDC Security Operations Center have discovered a new attack technique that lone attackers with limited resources (in this case, a laptop and at least 15Mbps of bandwidth) can use to knock large servers offline. Dubbed a BlackNurse attack or the low-rate " Ping of Death " attack, the technique can be used to launch several low-volume DoS attacks by sending specially formed Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) packets, or 'pings' that overwhelm the processors on server protected by firewalls from Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, among others. ICMP is a protocol used by routers and other networking devices to send and receive error messages. According to a technical report [ PDF ] published this week, the BlackNurse attack is mo

The OpenSSL Foundation has patched over a dozen vulnerabilities in its cryptographic code library, including a high severity bug that can be exploited for denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. OpenSSL is a widely used open-source cryptographic library that provides encrypted Internet connections using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) for the majority of websites, as well as other secure services. The vulnerabilities exist in OpenSSL versions 1.0.1, 1.0.2 and 1.1.0 and patched in OpenSSL versions 1.1.0a, 1.0.2i and 1.0.1u. The Critical-rated bug ( CVE-2016-6304 ) can be exploited by sending a large OCSP Status Request extension on the targeted server during connection negotiations, which causes memory exhaustion to launch DoS attacks, the OpenSSL Project said . What is OCSP Protocol? OCSP (Online Certificate Status Protocol), supported by all modern web browsers, is a protocol designed to perform verification and obtain the revocation status of a digital

Cyber attacks are getting evil and worst nightmare for companies day-by-day, and the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is one of the favorite weapon for hackers to temporarily suspend services of a host connected to the Internet. Until now, nearly every big website had been a victim of this attack, and the most recent one was conducted against the BBC 's websites and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump 's main campaign website over this past holiday weekend. Out of two, the largest DDoS attack in the history was carried out against the BBC website: Over 600 Gbps . Largest DDoS Attack in the History The group calling itself New World Hacking claimed responsibility for taking down both the BBC's global website and Donald Trump's website last week. The group targeted all BBC sites, including its iPlayer on-demand service, and took them down for at least three hours on New Year's Eve. At the moment, the BBC news organiz

Tibet is an area in the Republic of China that has been the point of conflict for many years in China. While China believes that Tibet has been under Chinese rule for many centuries, Tibetans claim that they declared itself an independent republic in 1912. Tibetan Groups, especially pro-democracy activists, are being repeatedly targeted by persistent Cyber Attacks by Chinese State-sponsored hackers. Our Sources in Tibetan Community told The Hacker News that they are once again being targeted by Chinese hackers; this time their social network website. Chinese hackers are believed to have targeted a Tibetan only social networking site, unitib.com ( United Tibet ) as Beijing views the platform as a threat promoting free Tibet movement. The Unitib technical team sought assistance from Taiwanese and Indian security experts after they were forced to take the platform offline for few days due to the attack. Tashi, a member of the technical team at Unitib told The Hac

Small office and home office (SOHO) routers are an increasingly common target for cybercriminals, not because of any vulnerability, but because most routers are loosely managed and often deployed with default administrator credentials. A new report suggests that hackers are using large botnet of tens of thousands of insecure home and office-based routers to launch Distributed Denial-of-Service ( DDoS ) attacks . Security researchers from DDoS protection firm Incapsula uncovered a router-based botnet, still largely active while investigating a series of DDoS attacks against its customers that have been underway since at least last December, 2014. Over the past four months, researchers have recorded malicious traffic targeting 60 of its clients came from some 40,269 IP addresses belonging to 1,600 ISPs around the world. Almost all of the infected routers that were part of the botnet appear to be ARM-based models from a California-based networking company Ubiquiti Net

Security researchers have uncovered a zero-day vulnerability in iOS 8 that could repeatedly crash users' Apple iPhones, iPads and iPods when the devices connect to a malicious wireless hotspot. It's like Denial of Service (DoS) attack on Apple's iOS devices that results in crashing either individual iOS apps or users' entire iPhones. NO iOS ZONE Adi Sharabani and Yair Amit of Mobile security firm Skycure presented their latest research, titled " No iOS Zone ", at the RSA security conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. The duo showed: It is possible for an attacker to create malicious Wi-Fi networks in order to crash nearby users' mobile devices with incredible accuracy. Also, even the "No iOS Zone" attack is capable to make iOS things within the range completely unusable by triggering constant numbers of reboots. It is nothing but a DoS attack… ...that makes the device inaccessible by its users, just like in the ca

A Vulnerability has been discovered in the wildly popular messaging app WhatsApp , which allows anyone to remotely crash WhatsApp just by sending a specially crafted message, two security researchers reported ' The Hacker News '. Two India based independent security researchers, Indrajeet Bhuyan and Saurav Kar, both 17-year old teenagers demonstrated the WhatsApp Message Handler vulnerability to one of our security analyst. In a video demonstration, they showed that how a 2000 words (2kb in size) message in special character set can crash Whatsapp messenger app. Previous it was discovered that sending a huge message ( greater than 7mb in size) on Whatsapp could crash victim device and app immediately, but using this new exploit attacker only need to send a very small size (approx 2kb) message to the victim. The worried impact of the vulnerability is that the user who received the specially crafted message will have to delete his/her whole conversation and start a fresh

After successful in launching reflection and amplification Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks by abusing various protocols such as DNS, NTP and SMTP, hackers are now abusing Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) – part of the UPnP protocol standard – to target home and office devices, researchers warned. SSDP is a network protocol based on the Internet Protocol Suite that comes enabled on millions of networked devices, such as computers, printers, Internet gateways, Router / Wi-Fi access points, mobile devices, webcams, smart TVs and gaming consoles, to discover each other and automatically establish working configurations that enable data sharing, media streaming, media playback control and other services. FLAW IN UPnP USED IN AMPLIFICATION DDoS ATTACK Prolexic Security Engineering & Response Team (PLXsert) at Akamai Technologies have issued a warning that the devices use in residential or small office environments are being co-opted into reflection

After a week delay, Adobe has finally pushed out critical security updates for its frequently-attacked Reader and Acrobat PDF software packages to patch serious vulnerabilities that could lead to computers being compromised. The new versions of Adobe Reader and Acrobat released Tuesday for both Windows and Macintosh computers address eight vulnerabilities, five of which could allow for remote code execution . The remaining three vulnerabilities involve a sandbox bypass vulnerability that can be exploited to escalate an attacker's privileges on Windows, a denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerability related to memory corruption, and a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw that only affects the programs on the Mac platform. According to Adobe's advisory , applying the patches will involve a system restart. The affected versions are: Adobe Reader XI (11.0.08) and earlier 11.x versions for Windows Adobe Reader XI (11.0.07) and earlier 11.x versions for Macintosh Adobe Reade

Pebble, a wristwatch that can connect to your phone - both iOS and Android - and interact with apps, has a hard-coded vulnerability that allows a remote attacker to destroy your Smartwatch completely. Pebble Smartwatch , developed and released by Pebble Technology Corporation in 2013, is considered as one of the most popular SmartWatches that had become the most funded project in the history of Kickstarter. Just two hours after its crowd-funding campaign launched, Pebble had already surpassed its $100,000 goal and at last had reached over $10.25 million pledged by nearly 70,000 Kickstarter backers. A security enthusiast Hemanth Joseph  claimed to have found that his Pebble SmartWatch with the latest v2.4.1 Firmware can be remotely exploited by anyone with no technical knowledge in order to delete all data stored in the device, apps, notes, and other information stored in it. HOW PEBBLE SMARTWATCH WORKS Before proceeding towards how he did this, let me explain how Peb

Hacking Internet of Things (IoTs) have become an amazing practice for cyber criminals out there, but messing with Traffic lights would be something more crazy for them. The hacking scenes in hollywood movies has just been a source of entertainment for the technology industry, like we've seen traffic lights hacked in Die Hard and The Italian Job , but these movies always inspire hackers to perform similar hacking attacks in day-to-day life. Security researchers at the University of Michigan have not only hacked traffic light signals in real life, but also claimed that it's actually shockingly easy to perform by anyone with a laptop and the right kind of radio. If we compare the traffic light hacks in movies and real life, the reality is much easier. In a paper study published this month, the security researchers describe how a series of major security vulnerabilities in traffic light systems allowed them to very easily and very quickly seized control of the whole system of at

The hacktivist group Anonymous has reportedly taken down the official website of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad against Israel's military incursion in Gaza, which has resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties. The government of Israel has yet to comment on the Mossad hack attack. The ' Hacktivists ' were able to take down Mossad's website in a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack early morning, claims a statement on one of the Anonymous hacker's Twitter account. The attack on the website is supposed to be severe as it has been over 10 hours and the site is still down at the time of writing. OPERATION SAVE GAZA The Anonymous group has already targeted a number of other Israeli organizations as part of a campaign titled " Operation Save Gaza " in the mission to stop this " massacre ." Anonymous group has also claimed responsibility of taking down multiple Israeli government sites following the death of one of the organization's members. The member n

SNAPCHAT , photo sharing app is the majority choice for variety of users. Recently, the company has faced data breach and Captcha bypass vulnerability, and just yesterday a new denial-of-service attack has been revealed which can crash an iPhone . Jamie Sanchez , a security researcher has found the app vulnerable, which can enable a hacker to launch a denial-of-service attacks , resulting prompt the user to reset the mobile device. The flaw into the Snapchat app allows someone to flood a user with thousands of messages in a measure of seconds, " By reusing old tokens, hackers can send massive amounts of messages using powerful computers. This method could be used by spammers to send messages in mass quantities to numerous users, or it could be used to launch a cyber attack on specific individuals " he said. He demonstrated the vulnerability to LA Times reporter, bombarded his handset with thousands of messages within five seconds in a denial-of-service