Lessons For SMBs From WikiLeaks Revenge Attacks

The DDoS attacks by WikiLeaks supporters are an example of hacktivism, but the mechanisms could as easily be used for less idealistic purposes. SMBs need to be aware of threat and protect themselves.

"You've heard the story about the WikiLeaks-inspired distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks by now. Angered by the pulling of support from WikiLeaks by various payment merchants and network service providers, a collection of loosely affiliated hackers who call themselves Anonymous have made it their mission to DDoS the websites of the parties involved. Among others, DDoS attacks were launched against companies such as PayPal, Mastercard and Visa in a bid to exact vengeance by digitally crippling selected sites belonging to these organizations.

To achieve its objective, Anonymous modified an open source server load testing tool for its nefarious purpose, essentially creating an 'opt-in' botnet where volunteers could download the software onto their machines to be coopted as part of a single botnet. The client connects to a centralized server to obtain instructions, before proceeding to pound away at specified targets using brute-force methods."