2011 Blog Rewind: DDoS Testing
by Kyle FlahertyBy Kyle Flaherty
Throughout the next two weeks we are recapping some of the most important topics covered on the blog during 2011. Today we take a look at the very latest DDoS attacks and how to test that your infrastructure can survive these threats. Below you can read about new application-layer DDoS attacks, how Korea Telecom hardened its infrastructure against these attacks, building a SIP INVITE flood, and more on DDoS testing:
Application-Layer DDoS Attacks Are Growing: Three to Watch Out For
Earlier this year, the Arbor Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report highlighted important trends in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Several findings stand out, including the overall expansion of attack surface and the escalation of attack size and frequency. The most interesting finding is that application-layer DDoS attacks are increasing rapidly — representing as much as a quarter of today’s DDoS attacks. In this post we talk about three app-layer DDoS attacks you should be watching out for.
Note from the Field: Evolved DoS Testing Enables Korea Telecom to Strengthen Defenses
South Korea’s businesses and government agencies are targets for some of the most damaging DDoS attacks in the world. These attacks put businesses at risk for network outages, lost revenue, data leaks, and other types of damage. In this post we talk with our team in the field and learn about the advanced DoS testing techniques being used by the country’s largest telecommunications provider, Korea Telecom.
Profiling a DDoS Attack: Direct Connect, Redirected
During a recent customer engagement, we were tasked with creating a test scenario that successfully created a Direct Connect Redirected DDoS attack. Direct Connect is a peer-to-peer protocol that has many of the features of IRC but also includes Napster-style file sharing. This post shares the experience of analyzing the attack and then building it for DDoS testing.
SIP INVITE Flood: Testing an Asterisk VoIP Server against a DDoS Attack
The impact of a DDoS attack on your VoIP infrastructure can vary from pure annoyance to business disrupter. Read this post and follow along as one of the BreakingPoint engineers builds a SIP INVITE flood attack and runs it against an Asterisk VoIP server. Using this DDoS testing technique, you can pursue various mitigation efforts such as deploying firewalls that are SIP-aware, using rate limiting/throttling, reconfiguring your PBX, or bringing in third-party DDoS mitigation experts.
Happy Holidays: 5 Ways to Use DoS Testing to Thwart Cyber Extortion
As we are in the middle of the holiday season, we know attackers will choose this crucial shopping period to launch “cyber extortion” assaults using DDoS as a threat to demand money. This year we are seeing companies fighting back. This post takes a look at five DoS testing goodies that companies are using to prevent cyber extortion attacks.
Additional Blog Rewind 2011 Topics:
2011 Blog Rewind: Mobility Testing
2011 Blog Rewind: Network Security Testing
