Record Breaking BotNet Hacks 145K+ Internet-Connected Cameras to Deliver Devastating DDoS Attack
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We’ve reached another unfortunate milestone in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which continue to become more sophisticated and powerful with each passing day.
A French web-hosting company, OVH, has been the victim of one of the biggest web attacks ever, involving a botnet of over 145,000 enslaved internet-connected devices (such as webcams) used to fire massive amounts of data at the website to knock it offline. The attack peaked at 1.1 Tbps, which is a staggering number, although the botnet is estimated to have had a capacity of 1.5 Tbps.
The attack has focused attention on the relatively shoddy state of internet of things (IoT) security. Hackers have taken to exploiting the cheap bandwidth of IoT devices, which have unsophisticated security protocols, hijacking them and corralling them into a zombie network of devices to overwhelm target websites with a deluge of data.
OVH founder Octave Klaba live-tweeted the DDoS attack, a withering onslaught which took his website offline for nearly a week, according to the BBC. The last tweet he sent out informed readers that over 15,654 new CCTV cameras had been press-ganged into the participating in the attack.
Akamai, the cyber-security firm supporting OVH, noted that the assault was one of the biggest it had ever witnessed and warned that large-scale attacks would become increasingly prevalent in coming years.
“Now that we’ve seen a 600 gig botnet, we have to plan that within one to two years, those are going to become common,” Martin McKeay, a member of Akamai’s security intelligence team, told Ars Technica. “They may not be every attack, but we will see a dozen of them a quarter, we’ll see a couple hundred of them a year. Now that people know those are a possibility, they’re going to start pushing in that direction. They’re going to make it happen.”
Cyber-security is a relentless, high-stakes arms race and this incident is unfortunately likely to inspire more brazen and audacious attacks. One day, DDoS attacks will grow to such a size that they will be able to knock entire regions offline, which is why it’s crucial for companies to prepare ahead of time.
