Massive Web Attack

A massive web attack targeted a security blogger following his expose on hackers who attack websites for money.

17:12 27 September 2016

Industry expert Brian Krebs is apparently the target of one of the biggest web attacks ever seen. It is believed that the attack was due to an article he published in early September that named two young men allegedly associated with a service called VDos that carried out DDoS attacks for cash.    

 

At its peak, the attack aimed 620 gigabits of data at Mr Kreb’s website.  

 

In a blogpost, Mr Krebs said that the attack started on Tuesday night and quickly ramped up to its peak attack rate. Although the attack attempted to knock the site offline, Mr Kreb’s site stayed online thanks to work by security engineers.

 

According to security firm Akamain, the attack generated a huge volume of data by exploiting weak or default passwords in wifely used net-connected cameras, routers and digital video recorders. These were then used to swamp the site with data requests.

 

"These new internet-accessible devices can bring great benefits, but they are also an increasingly easy and lucrative targets for cybercriminals," said Nick Shaw from security firm Symantec.