Network Security News

DDoS attacks require global response, Gillibrand says

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Citing the recent wave of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on U.S. and South Korean government sites, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York has proposed legislation to bolster U.S. efforts to work with foreign governments on cybersecurity.

Called the Fostering a Global Response to Cyber Attacks Act, the bill would require the secretary of state to report to Congress on efforts to encourage international cooperation in improving cybersecurity.

"Attacks potentially launched from within North Korea, Russia, China and other countries have grown more sophisticated, more targeted and more serious over the past year and will only grow more dangerous in time," Gillibrand said.

The DDoS attacks that began the weekend of July 4 originated from more than 166,000 zombie PCs in 74 countries, according to the Vietnamese security firm Bkis. The firm reported that the botnet was controlled by eight command and control servers under the direction of a master server located in the UK.

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC), South Korea's broadcasting and telecommunications regulator, said the Bkis report was "credible" and said authorities in South Korea are seeking cooperation with the British government to investigate the attacks, according to the Korea Times.

"We don't know that the attackers were actually based in Britain, or mainly hacked a British IP address and used it for delivery," an official from KCC told the Korean paper.