Korea DDoS surge mired in hype and confusion

Rows rumble on over sources and targets of botnet attacks.

Last week’s gush of denial-of-service attacks has sparked considerable excitement and argument, with rumours of possible links to North Korean aggression leading to frenzied hype and ill-founded suggestions of the outbreak of cyberwar.

The attacks targeted a range of servers, notably government and news websites in the US and South Korea, and originated from a botnet of systems thought to be infected with a modified variant of the venerable W32/MyDoom worm. Like the targeted sites, an unusually large proportion of the botnet appears to have been located in South Korea, a factor many have taken as a sign that the attack originated from their neighbours to the north, whose nuclear testing activities have brought the ongoing problems of the divided nation to the world’s attention in recent weeks.

During a week of conflicting reports and studies of the attack, with the botnet described as ‘massive’ by some and ‘average’ by others, US Republican politician Peter Hoesktre heightened the hype by calling for a strong response to what he considered an act of cyberwar by North Korea. However, other sources have speculated that the local focus of the infections, and the attacks, could simply be down to an infection source on a popular Korean website, while other researchers have found the control servers for the botnet may be located in Florida, USA. With the deactivation of the botnet accompanied by apparently self-destructive activity on infected systems, investigations look likely to continue, and with them no doubt further speculation.

Early reports on the outbreak last week were issued by

Associated Press


here

. More details were recorded by Brian Krebs, whose

Washington Post

host site was targeted in the attacks – see

here

, with a follow-up on the self-destruct

here

and further reporting in

The Register


here

.

Wired

reported on the outspoken congressman

here

, with more in

The Register


here

. More sober comments can be found in blog entries at

Sunbelt


here

and

here

,

ESET


here

and

Trend Micro


here

.

An in-depth study of the botnet, including a list of targeted domains, is provided by the

Shadowserver Foundation


here

, while the latest report on the possible sources of the attacks is in

PCWorld


here

.

Posted on 15 July 2009 by

Virus Bulletin