OpUSA Threatens Banks, Government

OpUSA Threatens Banks, Government



4 maj, 2013 |
Filed under: News and tagged with: #OpUSA, Anonymous, Deface, Hackers, Hacking, Internet freedoms, Resistance, Security, USA



Anonymous: ‘We Will Wipe You Off the Cyber Map’




Security experts say that OperationUSA,
a coordinated online attack against banking and government websites
slated for May 7, is a serious threat. As a result, organizations should
be upping their distributed-denial-of-service attack mitigation strategies to guard against the attacks, which are being coordinated by the hacktivist group Anonymous.
Experts advise that call-center staff should be educated about DDoS
attacks, in case customers call in about online outages or experience
difficulty accessing accounts. And network and security teams should
actively monitor Internet traffic on May 7 and take steps to block
specific IP addresses.

Anonymous has said the attacks are being waged because of perceived social and political injustices. In an April 21Pastebin post,
it states: ”Anonymous will make sure that this May 7th will be a day to
remember. On that day Anonymous will start phase one of operation USA.
America, you have committed multiple war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and recently you have committed war crimes in your own
country.

The group goes on to say U.S. financial institutions
will be targeted for attack. ”Do not take this as a warning,” the post
states. ”You cannot stop the Internet hate machine from doxes, DNS
attacks, defaces, redirects, DDoS attacks, database leaks and admin
takeovers.”

The White House website and eight other federal government sites,
plus those of 133 U.S. banking institutions, are listed as targets in an
April 24 Anonymous Pastebinpost.

Anonymous says it simply plans to take these sites offline: ”We will now wipe you off the cyber map.”

Experts say the threat is serious and few of the targeted organizations, other than the top 50 U.S. banking institutions, have made significant investments to withstand the attacks.

OpIsrael vs. OpUSA

And while coordinated DDoS attacks waged by Anonymous last month
against organizations in Israel had little impact, experts say similar
attacks could be devastating in the United States. That’s because the
U.S. Internet infrastructure is much more dynamic. In Israel, the
Internet pipeline is much easier to close off and contain, making it
easier to block bad traffic, says Marc Gaffan, co-founder of online
security provider Incapsula.

During OperationIsrael, the attackers failed to take
over enough servers within that nation to effectively launch the
attacks, he adds. But the attackers have learned from their mistakes and
have likely taken over more U.S.-based web servers and improved the
coordination of their attack, says Ronen Kenig, an Israel-based
researcher for DDoS-mitigation provider Radware.

”What we know from some of the information that has been shared in
forums and other communication channels is that this is going to be very
similar to what we saw in OperationIsrael,” he says. ”The same groups
are involved.”

OperationUSA aims to get widespread attention for Anonymous by
accomplishing online destruction and disruption, Kenig says – the same
goal OpIsrael set out to accomplish.

OpIsrael’s failure should not lead U.S.
organizations to take OpUSA lightly, stresses fraud expert Avivah Litan,
an analyst for consultancy Gartner. ”This should all be taken very
seriously,” she says. ”The main message is that they [hacktivists'
attacks] just aren’t going away, and, instead, are getting more
organized and more unsettling.”

Leading U.S. banking institutions, which have been battling targeted
DDoS strikes since mid-September, are best equipped to withstand the
online traffic surge OpUSA could dole out, Kenig says.

”The smaller banks are not prepared, and the government
side is not very well prepared, either,” Kenig says. ”If a massive
attack will come, I’m sure we will see many of the government websites
going down.”

Security experts are speculating about whether Izz
ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters, the hacktivist group that’s taken
credit for the series of DDoS attacks against U.S. banks during the past
eight months, will join the OpUSA movement. In some ways, Anonymous and
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam share similar goals – to humiliate and annoy the
U.S., says Rodney Joffe, senior technologist for online security
provider Neustar Inc

While Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has been reluctant to push
its DDoS force to full capacity, the attackers behind OpUSA aren’t
likely to practice the same discretion, Joffe says.

”I would be surprised if al-Qassam got behind this effort,” Joffe
says. ”They’ve been very careful not to provoke a response from the U.S.
government. They’ve done just enough to be a nuisance. Those behind
OpUSA don’t have the same motivations, and they don’t appear to be as
sophisticated.”

Dan Holden of DDoS-mitigation provider Arbor
Networks says associating itself with Anonymous does not really help Izz
ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters. ”However, the one thing that does lead
me to think it’s possible would be the much larger impact the attack
would have with their involvement,” he adds.

”I would say that if they do become involved, that the
likelihood of the attacks being successful goes way up,” Holden adds.
”OpIsrael didn’t seem to have a ton of impact, but the defensive
capability outside of the banks is likely to be less, and therefore this
could be used as an excuse by QCF [Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters]
to expand their efforts and realize a win, so to speak, given the
dwindling effect many of their attacks have had lately.”

Without the participation of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, OpUSA will be less
effective, Kenig acknowledges. ”This is a serious threat,” Kenig says.
”But if the attackers are going to be successful, they will definitely
need more botnets. If the Cyber Fighters join the attack and bring their
botnet on, the attacks will be significant.”

/Via Bank Info Security


Thanks to: http://www.anonsweden.se