By Diego Ramirez
This past Thursday, one day after the Internet black out by many major websites in protest of SOPA/PIPA, the US government and it s agencies as part of larger global crackdown, shutdown the popular file sharing site Megaupload. Almost immediately after, hacker group ”Anonymous” began a large scale DDoS attack directed at websites for entertainment groups such as MPAA and RIAA along with various government sites including FBI.gov, justice.gov, etc… Although this is not the first time these websites have been attacked by Anonymous, what made Thursdays attack so very interesting is how they went about it.
In the past, supporters of Anonymous and other groups would download a DDoS client, such as the infamous LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon) or other similar applications in order to facilitate the DDoS attack. On Thursday we observed links to a website with links to a site containing java script which acted as the DDoS client, with no configuring or no downloading required. These links was distributed via social networking sites such as twitter.
Image courtesy of http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com
While some speculate this could be used by participants for legal defense, where a user would claim that they would be tricked, or inadvertently participated in the attack without knowing” they were doing so. This can be indeed be a new way to click jack someone into participating in a DDoS without knowing it, and has the potential to make DDoS attacks even more common and far more devastating than it has been in the past.
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