AnonFreedom

NSA: Anonymous Could Cause Power Outages Through Cyberattacks

Anonymous already has a diverse set of tactics, including showing up to awards ceremonies. But the NSA is worried that its cyberattacks could bring about power outages across the US.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the NSA, has described in private meetings how “Anonymous could have the ability within the next year or two to bring about a limited power outage through a cyberattack”. These concerns haven’t been aired publicly, but rather reported by people familiar with the gatherings.

While up to now Anonymous has largely been in the habit of embarrassing large corporations—though it has done for a law firm—federal officials worry that the organization only wants to become more disruptive. Indeed, Anonymous has mentioned a plan to shut down the internet on March 31, which it refers to as Operation Global Blackout.

That is extremely unlikely. Similarly, widespread power outages as a result of attacking the power gird would be difficult to orchestrate, and instead any such attack would likely be isolated and limited in size. Fortunately, the power sector is bracing itself for such problems. “The industry is engaged and stepping up widely to respond to emerging cyber threats,” one electric-industry official told the WSJ.

While we can comfort ourselves over the fact that these attacks would be small and short-lived, that’s not really the point. If Anonymous demonstrates an ability to attack the power grid, that doesn’t just affect corporations and organizations: it affects the public in a tangible way. The resulting sense of submission and helplessness is what is most worrying—and after an attack like that, who knows what we could expect next?

(Source: Gizmodo)

Anonymous threatens to DDOS root Internet servers

 An upcoming campaign announced by the hacking group Anonymous directed against the Internet’s core address lookup system is unlikely to cause much damage, according to one security expert.

In a warning on Pastebin, Anonymous said last Thursday it would launch an action on March 31 as part of “Operation Global Blackout” that would target the root Domain Name System (DNS) servers.

Anonymous said the attack has been planned as a protest against “our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun”.

The DNS translates a Web site name, such as www.idg.com, into a numerical IP (Internet Protocol) address, which is used by computers to find the Web site.

The 13 authoritative root servers contain the master list of where other nameservers can look up an IP address for a domain name within a certain top-level domain such as “.com.”

The group said it had built a “Reflective DNS Amplification DDOS” (distributed denial-of-service) tool, which causes other DNS servers to overwhelm those root servers with lots of traffic, according to the Pastebin post.

But there are several factors working against the Anonymous campaigners,wrote Robert Graham, CEO of Errata Security.

“They might affect a few of the root DNS servers, but it’s unlikely they could take all of them down, at least for any period of time,” Graham wrote. “On the day of their planned Global Blackout, it’s doubtful many people would notice.”

Although there are 13 root servers, an attack on one would not affect the other 12, Graham wrote. Additionally, an attack would be less successful due to “anycasting,” which allows traffic for a root server to be redirected to another server containing a replica of the same data.

There are hundreds of other servers worldwide that hold the same data as the root servers, which increase the resiliency of DNS.

ISPs also tend to cache DNS data for a while, Graham wrote. ISPs may cache data for a day or two before needing to do a fresh lookup, a time period that can be set on servers known as “time-to-live.” It means that even if a root server was down, it would not necessarily immediately affect an ISP’s customers.

Lastly, root DNS servers are closely watched. If trouble started, the malicious traffic to the root servers would likely be blocked, with disruptions lasting a few minutes, Graham wrote.

“Within minutes of something twitching, hundreds of Internet experts will converge to solve the problem,” he wrote.

(Source: computerworld.com)

Who is Anonymous? Everyone and no one

There’s been a lot of news over the past few days about the hacker collective Anonymous. Last Friday, the group claimed to have posted an internal FBI conference call discussing investigations into Anonymous and the FBI acknowledged the call was intended to be private. This week, Anonymous posted e-mailsthat it claims are from an adviser to the Syrian president, suggesting how Bashar al-Assad could downplay violence in the country when he was interviewed by Barbara Walters last summer.

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China: Beijing microbloggers must use real names by March 16

The Chinese government says all microbloggers in Beijing must post under their real names by March 16…or they’ll be banned.

A local government official has warned users of Chinese microblogging services—weibos—in Beijing that they must post under their real names no later than March 16 or be banned from the services. The move comes after the Chinese capital issued requirements late last year that weibos users re-register for micro-blogging services under their real names to enable authorities to more easily monitor and block them if they post material the government finds objectionable.

The deadline is the latest move in the Chinese government’s efforts to exert control over social media in the country. Although China has long run the world’s most elaborate Internet censorship regime, the system has largely focused on blocking access to particular sites and services the government believes to be harmful. Social media however—particularly the Twitter-like fast messages of weibos—has proven difficult for authorities to monitor: messages and postings are distributed too quickly for censors and monitors to keep up with in real time. Chinese authorities have derided the use of microblogging services to spread “rumors” and offensive material.

According to the Beijing official, users who do not register with their real names by March 16 will be banned from posting to social networks, but will still be able to read postings.

Authorities have attempted to exert control over weibos, having controversial posts removed from services as soon as they’re discovered. However, ordinary Chinese have taken to weibos as a way to express frustration over government corruption, spread news about accidents and disasters, and distribute information about current events and scandals. Thanks to posting and re-posting, the links, photos, and information distributed by weibos can often evade authorities’ efforts to block it almost indefinitely.

The Chinese government has grown increasingly wary of social media in the lead-up to a leadership transition in the Communist party this year, and is no doubt cognizant of the role services like Twitter and Facebook have played in the so-called “Arab spring” movements that toppled governments in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.

The issues of online identity also resonate in Western countries, with services like Facebook and Google+ routinely removing accounts that don’t correspond with a real-life identity.

(Source: digitaltrends.com)