Attackers Install DDoS Bots On Amazon Cloud 25
itwbennett (1594911) writes "Attackers are exploiting a vulnerability in distributed search engine software Elasticsearch to install DDoS malware on Amazon and possibly other cloud servers. Last week security researchers from Kaspersky Lab found new variants of Mayday, a Trojan program for Linux that's used to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The malware supports several DDoS techniques, including DNS amplification. One of the new Mayday variants was found running on compromised Amazon EC2 server instances, but this is not the only platform being misused, said Kaspersky Lab researcher Kurt Baumgartner Friday in a blog post."
Is the AWS cloud... (Score:3, Funny)
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Easiest DDOS ever: install a worm that makes the targeted site take part in a DDOS, and get disconnected as a security measure.
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being that amazon charges you for incoming and outgoing data, i don't think they really care
Only a problem for unpatched systems? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article claims that only 1.1.x versions of Elasticsearch were vulnerable, and that the vulnerabilities were fixed in 1.2.x and 1.3.x. To me, this sounds like any company still running 1.1.x versions brought it upon themselves.
But it's the cloud... (Score:5, Funny)
The more things change...
Re:But it's the cloud... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you choose a cloud offering which does that for you then yes, you don't have to worry about things like software updates and patching.
However, if you choose a cloud offering which is essentially a hosted server, then you still have to worry about all the things you would with your own local server, excluding power and hardware faults.
Amazon AWS is a platform provider, its not a fully managed solution and never has been - people have been caught out by that before when availability zones failed and suddenly people realised the benefit of having redundant instances in multiple availability zones.
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If you choose a cloud offering which does that for you then yes, you don't have to worry about things like software updates and patching.
I would say you still have to worry about it, and verify it was done. You just do not have to actually do it...
Re:But it's the cloud... (Score:4, Insightful)
"If you choose a cloud offering which does that for you then yes, you don't have to worry about things like software updates and patching."
Well, yes, you need to worry anyway.
If it's not done, because it's not done. But if it's done, because of what the update/patching breaks on your own apps.
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Oh, Look! A red herring! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh, Look! A red herring! (Score:4, Funny)
Look, slashdotters are terrified of change. If you don't like that, go somewhere else.
Except that's changing things, so please don't; it's too scary.
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(Score:-1, was it really that hard a joke to get?)
Stupid sensationalism (Score:5, Insightful)
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My guess is they just looked at a couple EC2 machines, and since no one uses Azure or Google Compute Engine, they just didn't bother following up on those and made a blanket statement that it applies to all environments (which it does). This has nothing to do with EC2, or Azure or any other environment, really. This is a vulnerability in a piece of 3rd party distributed search engine software that a bunch of people were too lazy to update.
The real headline just doesn't perform quite as well as the clickba
I choose not to cloud (Score:1)
I am not paranoid in the least, but I know from experience that if you provide a reason for hackers to attack. No matter if that's a platform for sending out malware or DOS or whatever. Or if its just to mine personal information and exploit credit cards, identification and whatever else. The hackers will no doubt be trying to circumvent
security and you know they will succeed. I don't see cloud as any more viable then saying it will never rain again and always be Sunny. We know that will never happen. The c
Oh now the Cloud is falling (Score:1)
This would be wittier if it was Microsoft SkyDrive, but meh.
The cloud is failing. This is one specific instance of how virtualization's "lower costs" aren't lower at all. Somewhere along the line, the person responsible for this outsourcing to AWS, misunderstands that they are still responsible for security and maintenance, and in fact should be hiring MORE staff, not laying staff off to fake cost savings to shareholders. It will take only one really high profile AWS "destruction" and then no enterprise bus
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I have had so so many hack attempts from Amazons servers that it was just easier to fire wall ALL of them.
Yup. Amazon Cloud and a couple others are completely null routed from my work network. Big sections of others overseas are blocked as well.
So far, complaints have been zero. And, we get less log and web site form harassment from misbehaving bots.
We have determined that the signal to noise ratio coming from cloud hosting services is ZERO.