Hackers Take Down the Most Wired Country in Europe

Botnets: action movie plot devices turned real threat.

Let the developed world beware: the gates may be shut, but the back door's only being held closed with bailing twine.

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#1 - Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:18 AM EDT

Deep_Thought

Taking down a country is pretty simple. There is X amount of total bandwidth available via International links. If you send data (Y) of a volume than the International links can transmit/receive then you will cause other data to be denied transport.

So,

If(Y > X) say "bye bye"

For many large nations that could mean an excess of 100Tbits per second. Smaller nations are much easier to shut down.

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#1.1 - Thu Aug 23, 2007 9:16 AM EDT

Belarius

If(Y > X) say "bye bye"

There exist some pretty solid defenses against distributed denial of service attacks, which this essentially is. Problem is, those defenses require a sharp administrator and the right kind of security tools. Not everyone has risen to that level yet.

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#1.2 - Thu Aug 23, 2007 12:37 PM EDT

Botnets: action-movie plot devices become real threat.

The gates may be locked, but the back door's being held closed with bailing twine.

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#2 - Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:22 AM EDT

Welcome to Newsvine izanobu. You appear to have announced your arrival with a telling seed!

In my view, everyone on Newsvine needs to read this article at least once. It is very sobering. There is much in the article that does warrant serious debate and introspection on Newsvine. Here's a few choice cuts as examples...

had slipped into the country through its least protected border — the Internet.

"All major commercial banks, telcos, media outlets, and name servers — the phone books of the Internet — felt the impact, and this affected the majority of the Estonian population. This was the first time that a botnet threatened the national security of an entire nation."

Estonia — or eStonia, as some citizens prefer — is like a window into the future. Someday, the rest of the world will be as wired as this tiny Baltic nation.

Whoever was behind this was sophisticated, fast, and intelligent.

The number one foreign country accessing the site: Egypt. Vietnam and Peru followed.

Fighting the bots directly required a more modern defense. It required social networking.

"You may think you have no influence on the situation??? You CAN have it on the Internet!"

they found was a botnet comprising mostly hijacked computers in the US.

these hackers represent a stateless power — a sort of private militia.

"Russian IT specialists are knowledgeable and experienced enough to destroy the key servers of whole states," he says. "They're the best in the world."

says that she suspects the attacks were a test. …. one way of checking NATO's defenses.

information warfare is a similar defining moment in world history.

"Like nuclear radiation, cyberwar doesn't make you bleed, but it can destroy everything."

This article should be read in conjunction with an article by The Economist titled 'Internet Jihad' which I seeded last month.

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#3 - Thu Aug 23, 2007 8:22 AM EDT

Have clipped this to a few more Groups. Cannot get to Worldviews - hidden by the tabs!

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#4 - Thu Aug 23, 2007 9:04 AM EDT

I think it is important to note..that this really is nothing new. The recipe is pretty simple. Run millions of pirated and unpatched windows machines. Add a bunch of idiots trying to download lots of pr0n, warez and other junk. Than inject a "remote administration tool" like sub7 or back orifice and you get a nice little zombie-bot willing to do your bidding. In fact the Russian mob has bought and sold bot-nets and used them as "ransom-ware"i.e, you threaten a business and tell them that if they do not pay X amount of dollars you will shut them down. Its Internet extortion at its finest.

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#5 - Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:01 AM EDT

Raat ki Raani

I don't think anyone is suggesting this is new. Some technological innovations and approaches (like social networking, Web 2.0, Grid computing etc) have meant that far more damage can be wielded by more people, not all of who need to be technically very bright. But it also is because the serious hackers that are intent on doing damage are also getting more sophisticated.

It is becoming a powerful weapon - I do not think corporations and government departments are as aware of the risks as they should (could) be.

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#5.1 - Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:07 AM EDT

MCLiepshutz

It has actually been a weapon for quite some time. The DalNet irc network was totally incapacitated by a botnet(DoS) attack a few years back. It has been documented that there are actually places where botnets are bought and sold. I agree with you, it is nothing new. What I disagree with is that this reflects a greater sophistication. The simple fact is that there are a LOT of people who have no idea of what constitutes safe computing practices, and there are still a lot of Win9x and xp machines out there that allow (because of permissions) these programs to clandestinely take over these machines. Here is an interesting link for an actual report about a DoS attack at GRC its a nice read.

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#5.2 - Thu Aug 23, 2007 12:39 PM EDT

10 point for the Hacker community. Rofl.

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#6 - Thu Aug 23, 2007 11:46 AM EDT

Raat -- I clipped to Worldviews for you.
A fascinating read. You don't often find such absorbing detail and a blow-by-blow description of events.

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#7 - Thu Aug 23, 2007 1:04 PM EDT

Raat ki Raani

Thanks Laura. You're a star:-)

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#7.1 - Thu Aug 23, 2007 1:21 PM EDT

Newsvine seems to be slow and some pages are not opening, of which make me think that a fundlemental hacker is being silly to day. The title to the seeded article is miss leading as UK is the most wired nation in europe, I can say that without a doubt.

I do not like the term of hacker, it does not apply to the computer geeks that find some perverted power in jaming the internet or seeding viruses:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hacker, as it relates to computers, has several common meanings. Hacker is often used by the mass media to refer to a person who engages in computer cracking and is also often used by those in computing fields to refer to a person who is a computer enthusiast. At least three major hacker subcultures, characterized by their largely distinct historical development, use the term in their jargon for self-identification.[1] They are centered around different, but partially overlapping aspects of computers and have conflicting ideas about who may legitimately be called a hacker (see hacker definition controversy). In computer security, a hacker is someone who focuses on security mechanisms. In common use, which was popularized by the mass media, that refers to someone who illegally breaks into computer and network systems. That is, the media portrays the 'hacker' as a villain. Nevertheless, parts of the subculture see their aim in correcting security problems and use the word in a positive sense. They operate under a code of the Hacker Ethic, in which it's acknowledged that breaking into other people's computers is bad, but that discovering and exploiting security mechanisms and breaking into computers is nevertheless an interesting aspect that can be done in an ethical and legal way. This use is contrasted by the different understanding of the word as a person who follows a spirit of playful cleverness and loves programming. It is found in an originally academic movement unrelated to computer security and most visibly associated with free software and open source. It also has a hacker ethic, based on the idea that writing software and sharing the result is a good idea, but only on a voluntary basis, and that information should be free, but that it's not up to the hacker to make it free by breaking into private computer systems. Academic hackers disassociate from the mass media's pejorative use of the word 'hacker' referring to computer security, and usually prefer the term 'cracker' for that meaning. In a third meaning, the term refers to computer hobbyists who push the limits of their software or hardwa

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The reason being is that hackers, crack code, they don't use electronic warfare, or botnets to @!$%#up people systems.

"Computer Terrorists" is a far better term for the germ heads that indulge in such stupidity.

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#8 - Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:54 PM EDT

izanobu

I completely agree that "Computer Terrorists" is a much better term. What is interesting about the article to me is not the misnomers (although they do speak to severe cultural misunderstandings that could be an entire other article or five in themselves), but that the attack was executed so cleanly as to cripple the country for a time.

As to the most wired country in Europe, all the data on that I could immediately find claimed Singapore and Sweden at the top. But the data is at least a year old, so further research would be required to say for sure. It might be a per capita thing, in which case it is entirely possible that for it's population, Estonia is winning.

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#8.1 - Fri Aug 24, 2007 5:55 AM EDT

Raat ki Raani

Bob - you've been away too long. I do not believe the UK is anywhere close to the top:-)

Within Europe, the Nordic states are consistently high and I would not be surprised if the Baltic states have caught up since market liberalization took off there. Iceland is also high up.

Outside Europe, places like Singapore and Asian Tiger economies (like S. Korea etc) also tend to feature strongly. As izanobu says, it is very much to do with 'per capita'; also demographics. Population in Western European countries comprises more 'older' segments as people are living longer.

The world is indeed flat(ter)!

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#8.2 - Fri Aug 24, 2007 6:15 AM EDT

IZANOBU this is a very good seed but I want to put people straight about The noble art of hacking

You inspired me in writing an article today, thanks

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#9 - Fri Aug 24, 2007 12:22 AM EDT

The Russian connection is very interesting. I had no idea that they are regarded as the best in IT, altho I did know that some American IT work is outsourced to Russians...

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#10 - Fri Aug 24, 2007 4:39 PM EDT

Raat ki Raani

regarded as the best in IT

I think what he was saying was that they are the best in this kind of IT. Kinda espionage IT.

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#10.1 - Fri Aug 24, 2007 6:28 PM EDT