Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Security The Internet

Hackers Abuse Satellite Internet Links To Remain Anonymous 26

msm1267 writes: Poorly secured satellite-based Internet links are being abused by nation-state hackers, most notably by the Turla APT group, to hide command-and-control operations, researchers at Kaspersky Lab said today. Active for close to a decade, Turla's activities were exposed last year; the Russian-speaking gang has carried out espionage campaigns against more than 500 victims in 45 countries, most of those victims in critical areas such as government agencies, diplomatic and military targets, and others. Its use of hijacked downstream-only links is a cheap ($1,000 a year to maintain) and simple means of moving malware and communicating with compromised machines, Kaspersky researchers wrote in a report. Those connections, albeit slow, are a beacon for hackers because links are not encrypted and ripe for abuse.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Hackers Abuse Satellite Internet Links To Remain Anonymous

Comments Filter:
  • by TheCarp ( 96830 ) <sjc.carpanet@net> on Wednesday September 09, 2015 @11:35AM (#50486925) Homepage

    normally, if a packet hits a closed port, a RST or FIN packet will be sent back to the source to indicate that there is nothing expecting the packet. However, for slow links, firewalls are recommended and used to simply DROP packets to closed ports.

    Generally speaking, spoofing requires some pretty specific constraints to work at all, and tends to not be a real issue. Well, here is the issue. When a legitimate host fails to respond to its end on an invalid connection.... you have half of the required conditions for spoofing to work well.

    Add to that the ability to see incoming traffic to that host....and you have the other half. Make sure they are unencrupted, and there is no way to figure out where the reciever is located....and you have really done it good.

    The rest of it pretty logically follows from there. They built exactly what you would expect them to build, either intentionally or due to dumb luck of connections, did it in Africa. Good luck finding them.

  • If we don't secure our satellites invading aliens will be able to use them to coordinate their attack on us. Check Mate!
    • If we don't secure our satellites invading aliens will be able to use them to coordinate their attack on us. Check Mate!

      Yes, hitting that bullseye should make the dominoes fall like a house of cards.

  • by hodet ( 620484 ) on Wednesday September 09, 2015 @12:09PM (#50487183)

    It must suck trying to cause mayhem with 1000ms ping times.

  • "Hackers Abuse Satellite Internet Links To Remain Anonymous"

    How exactly are Turla hacking the Satellite system to gain unauthorized access, without paying for the service?

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion

Working...