3 Significant Cyber Attacks In Recent Years.
The cyber attacks are like to get into the twilight zone of the Internet. There’s no way to talk about them without getting goose bumps. Every time they happen, we know there were victims, and for sure big losses. Obviously, we wouldn’t like to be in their shoes.
Let’s take a tour around 3 significant cyber attacks in recent years. The last case is a real red warning!
2020, target: Amazon Web Services, the international on-demand cloud computing supplier.
AWS was the target of a massive DDoS attack. Criminals used a vulnerability associated to the CLDAP or connection-less lightweight directory access protocol. The CLDAP is used for connecting, searching, and modifying directories on the Internet. A non-identified client of AWS was targeted via this protocol. Criminals took control over the CLDAP servers to amplify the attack. They multiplied 70 times the amount of data sent to the IP address of the AWS’ client.
72 hours under attack, receiving peaks of 2.3 terabytes per second. It was considered a milestone for criminals, and the DDoS attack history. Of course, it reached AWS clients, affecting the company’s reputation.
2021, target: Acer, one of the largest computer seller globally.
2021 hasn’t been an easy year for the Taiwanese venture. Early on March, it suffered a data breach. Criminals supposed to access the network of the international computer manufacturer through a Microsoft Exchange vulnerability. As a result, the ransomware group called Revil asked $50 millions not to release the sensitive data they got. Otherwise, data would be leaked on the Internet. Acer tried to negotiate and offered $10 millions. Criminals refused this offer, and increased their demand to $100 millions.
Later on October, another data breach hit Acer after-sales service system in India. 60 GB of financial and audit data, plus retailer, distributor and several million clients’ details were gotten by a hacking group called Desorden. Attacks didn’t disrupt Acer operations, but they definitely hit millions of clients’ trust, and loyalty.
2021, target: Yandex, a Russian international corporation provider of more than 70 Internet-related services.
Yandex was recently hit by a DDoS attack that lasted several days. It was a volumetric attack that reached a peak of 21.8 RPS (requests per second) on September the 5th. What called the world’s attention was the use of a new botnet, Meris.
Meris is a Latvian word that means plague. This new DDoS botnet supposed to include at least 30,000 compromised devices. But Yandex servers pointed up to 56,000 hosts participated in the recent attack. That made experts calculate that Meris botnet could really go up to 250,000. Meris was used for DDoS extortion, but this is its first time effectively deployed.
Researchers said this botnet is a kind of device that uses Ethernet connection. It uses the HTTP pipelining DDoS technique. It performs application-layer or volumetric DDoS attacks to drawn servers’ resources. Yandex clients data were not compromised. But the scary point here is that the full power of Meris botnet is still an enigma. A new and powerful DDoS threat to be aware of.
Conclusion.
It’s already too naive to believe that cyber attacks can’t happen to us, and our businesses. The reality clearly shows, every single month, how many individuals, small and big businesses get attacked by cyber criminals.
Prevention and safe practices are key. Strength your security defenses without hesitating. Don’t be part of the unfortunate statistics the cyber attacks leave behind.