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US Responsible For the Majority of Cyber Attacks
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Tue Sep 23, 2008 12:32 PM
from the we're-number-one-we're-number-one dept.
from the we're-number-one-we're-number-one dept.
Amber G5 writes "SecureWorks published the locations of the computers from which the greatest number of cyber attacks were attempted against its clients in 2008. The United States topped the list with 20.6 million attempted attacks originating from computers within the country, and China ran second with 7.7 million attempted attacks emanating from computers within its borders. This was followed by Brazil with over 166,987 attempted attacks, South Korea with 162,289, Poland with 153,205, Japan with 142,346, Russia with 130,572, Taiwan with 124,997, Germany with 110,493, and Canada with 107,483."
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Submission: US Responsible for the Majority of Cyber Attacks by Anonymous Coward
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Yeah! (Score:5, Funny)
Responsible for the Majority of Cyber Attacks ... (Score:3, Funny)
Within the U.S. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Within the U.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Within the U.S. (Score:4, Funny)
We should fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here!
We could also just send Sarah Palin over to Russia and ask them nicely to stop. After all, she can see it from her house, she already said she would cross a sovereign nations' borders without permission if necessary, and apparently she's ready to engage on foreign policy and relations.
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
However, this does tell you which networks are used the most by hackers (or script kiddies, depending on how you define attacks) which is still very useful information.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The majority of cyber-attacks(controlled by their Chinese and Russian overlords) originate within the U.S.
Do you have any legitimate source to back this statement?
Riiiiiight (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds plausible.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you honestly think anything but the tiniest fraction of port scans are not malicious?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Read, comprehend, reply. In that order.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
How many people do you think are out there maliciously portscanning? I've met way more normal computer professionals than psycho computer criminals that spend forty hours a week cracking.
Quite a number of them, and they're not exactly sitting around typing in nmap command lines by hand, you know. They have automated tools to scan large sections of the internet for known vulnerabilities to exploit. They don't run "thousands" of portscans, they run millions.
And the fact that you haven't met many of them might have more to do with you not associating with criminals, hmm?
Ummm, duh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Formula:
#zombies=#computers * X%
I mean, isn't it that obvious?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, any formula involving zombies needs to include some mention of number and location of malls, and at least passing mention of braaaaainzzz.
Re: (Score:2)
No, it's not. Local computer culture plays a big role in how easy it is to infect personal computers and servers.
Re:Ummm, duh? (Score:5, Informative)
And certainly there are a ton more computers in the U.S. than in China, although that will certainly change within the next decade or so.
Actually, China has ~253 million Internet users. The US has only ~215 million. It could just be that your numbers are dated - They're increasing that number about 8x as fast as we are. Look for yourself: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm [internetworldstats.com]
Parent
Re:Ummm, duh? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, just while I have the numbers pulled up, here are the number of "attacks" from each country mentioned in TFS scaled by the number of Internet users in the country. Since I'm inferring that these are total attacks and not unique IPs, I guess that these numbers are "attacks per Internet user".
0.09581 US
0.03043 China
0.00958 Poland
0.00812 Taiwan
0.00489 Canada
0.00466 South Korea
0.00392 Brazil
0.00210 Germany
0.00151 Japan
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that 0.09581 almost 1% or 9.5% of our internet-hopping population?
Neither - nothing more meaningful than "attacks per Internet user in the country". I thought that was an interesting scalar, but I'm not sure that it's useful expressed as a percentage (or perhaps not useful at all, but interesting to me). If each attack was from a unique "user", that would imply one attack on these monitored targets from each of 9.5% of the US Internet-enabled population - But that doesn't seem to be the case. So the actual percentage of "users" that attacked this target is certainly mu
Re: (Score:2)
More users != more computers. Plenty of people in China (and many other countries) don't own PCs — they use shared machines at Internet Cafes.
Re: (Score:2)
No, there is wonton more computers in China than in the U.S.
Where do you think they come from? Santa Claus's underpants?
redirection (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, hackers always use their home ip, and never bounce off of compromised clients in other countries.
Re:redirection (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:redirection (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Actually... (Score:5, Interesting)
Good job on reading the article. You know, the part where every other paragraph other than what was cut for the summary points this out and how to defend against this very thing.
You know, they never draw that conclusion in the article. They just say that some attacks originating from a given country may be initially controlled from a different country. They don't go into ip masking/spoofing or any of that... Why would they want to expose the limits to their services when this article was written in an attempt to sell something?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you're performing a DoS isn't IP spoofing very counterproductive since you cant get a response?
Re:Actually... (Score:4, Informative)
Unless you're performing a DoS isn't IP spoofing very counterproductive since you cant get a response?
Usually, yes. But some things can be accomplished, like the Windows Messaging spamming coming into UDP ports 1026-1028, nearly every second of every day it's coming into our network, trying to pop-up messages onto Windows users' computers. The messages tell them their computers are infected and they need to go and download something to fix it. Well, you can guess what will happen if they do :) Oh, they are being sent with spoofed addresses appearing to come from Shaw Cable.
From our cisco's access-list counters, which was just reset yesterday:
deny udp any any range 1026 1028 (8692 matches)
We've a reflexive access list that will allow UDP incoming on those ports if originated inside the network.
Lots of traffic comes from the reserved IP blocks, too. As well as spoofed local IP addresses. All sorts of nastiness.
deny ip 10.0.0.0 0.255.255.255 any (4232 matches)
deny ip 172.16.0.0 0.15.255.255 any (603 matches)
deny ip 192.168.0.0 0.0.255.255 any (1540 matches)
-Aaron
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
Grammar Nazis
Spelling Nazis
Trolls
First Posters
Meme Propogators (underpands gnome jokes, **AA jokes, grits, portman, the list goes on forever)
UID Groups (turn in your UID jokes, you are new here jokes, UID snobbery, etc)
Summary Reactors
and then finally, in primary opposition to the Summary Reactors the RTFAA. Read the F'ing Article Association.
Many people are members of multple castes. There are also other castes that present from time
20.6 million (Score:3, Interesting)
And out of how many computers connected to the Internet? I'm willing to bet China's "per machina" rate is higher.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would China use a latin-based metric? :P
Re: (Score:2)
And out of how many computers connected to the Internet? I'm willing to bet China's "per machina" rate is higher.
Since China actually has more internet-connected computers than the US, I'll take that bet.
Re: (Score:2)
Damn Windows Lusers! (Score:2, Funny)
Leaving their broadband-connected computers 24-7!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
well I'm a windows user that leaves my broadband connected computer up 24-7, and I guarantee none of my boxes are causing the attacks. Except for when I'm the one doing the attacking. Er, uhm, nevermind...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I run Windows XP under VirtualBox on an Ubuntu Linux machine that is connected 24x7. What does that make me?
Woot! (Score:5, Funny)
We're #1!
We're #1!
I'm sure the bulk of it is just that we have more computers. I'd have thought Japan would have been higher though, if that were the primary factor, so maybe not.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
According to Akamai's quarterly "State of the Internet" report, Japan and the U.S. account for "over 50% of observed [attack] traffic in total."
You can see the executive summary and download the report here [akamai.com].
Full Disclosure: I work for Akamai.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Full Disclosure: I work for Akamai.
ok now we just need your passwords.
May depend on who their "Clients"are... (Score:3, Interesting)
It might be that as the US is the greatest English-speaking population with disposable income, the US may be a better target and thus is targeted from within the itself more often??
Number One! (Score:5, Funny)
More in US than Reported (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More in US than Reported (Score:5, Insightful)
On the flip side of that would be the large # of botnets that are foreignly controlled, which is where most of TFA's attacks probably originated.
Also take into account the # of computers running unattended (and likely infected)in the US vs the rest of the world.
So, do we try to cut off the monster's hands or its head?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
That just means US has the most hijacked systems! (Score:4, Funny)
Did you know Canada has its CIA? No? Exactly. (Score:2, Funny)
Soooo.... (Score:5, Insightful)
What is with the down beat nay-sayers? (Score:2)
Come on, this is the first bit of upbeat news on the tech sector that the US has had in a while.
The banks might be tanking.
The Hell-desk might be going over seas
But when it comes to Cybercrime the US still leads the way as the Gambinos of the internet.
USA - A OK... come on you know you want to shout it.
China might have a state backed machine, but that is no match for the free market capitalism of corruption and crime that can support a much larger and more effective cybercrime base.
So don't doubt it and say
These numbers seem skewed... (Score:2)
I bet this does not take into account the use of proxy servers.
It's obvious (Score:2, Funny)
2 out of 3 US hackers choose SecureWorks clients. Remember, discerning hackers choose SecureWorks.
Well, what other country (Score:2)
Murder vs. Littering (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll notice pretty much any survey of crime shows:
Violent Crimes per 100,000
Serious Sexual Assaults per 100,000
Murders per 100,000
etc.
They don't just say, "Crimes" because...
Any smart person would choose somewhere with a billion people and 10,000 crimes over a million people with 1,000 crimes. That's why per capita is critical.
Any smart person would also likely choose somewhere with 10,000 littering offences and 1 murder over somewhere with 1000 murders.
It only takes two massive cyber attacks against the entire infrastructure of Georgia and Estonia to make Russia (assuming you don't accept their denials) far more offensive on a global scale than a million spam botnets.
Now which is worse? The country that spams millions of times or the country that cripples the infrastructure of any small nation that dares oppose it? Still care about pure numbers without caring what the numbers actually record?
I'm not claiming the U.S.'s vast numbers of offenses are purely the equivalent of littering, nor that they never do anything worse... Simply that big but meaningless because it's not clarified number A vs. big but meaningless because it's not clarified number B is still... meaningless.