July 4th attack not North Korea

[minus-sign]

Lack of evidence is shaking claims that North Korea may have perputrated the July 4th Botnet that attacked several US and South Korean state websites.

The Botnet was a version of MyDoom claimed a source on NPR.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5680C220090709

With the ongoing recession, we may see more of these types of attacks as jobless IT professionals turn rogue to keep their bellies full.

[mjc]

Riiiight...

Let's see...motive...your average out of work IT professional really has a grudge against the DoD, State and several other US government agencies AND S. Korea?

Not to say some 'out of work IT professional' couldn't be behind it...but who is behind him?

That article reeks of FUD...this time casting aspersions on IT professionals...like they are some group of radicals bent on destroying the world.

Who benefits from it NOT being N. Korea? An administration that has no backbone and isn't willing to confront the nutjobs in charge of N. Korea...

[PrntRhd]

North Korea does not have fat pipes to the Internet, but remember they have previously used "disproportionate force" to get attention, such as bombing airplanes.

Those airplanes did not touch down in their country but their agents got to them regardless.

Remember these are botnet attacks, and hard to determine just where they are actually being controlled from.

[Sylvander]

Does anyone remember that during the 2nd WW, the Nazis burnt down their own parliament so they could blame it on their enemies?
The Communists were their enemy number1.

Or how they attacked their own radio station using their own troops dressed in Polish uniforms, and killed [shot] a polish prisoner and left his body at the scene to make it look convincing?
This so that they could whip up support among their domestic population for the pre-planned invasion of Poland.

Dirty tricks are played, and things not always as they appear to be.

Be slow to jump to the obvious conclusions, and don't knee-jerk accuse the seemingly obvious culprit.

[PrntRhd]

Actually I agree.

[jlreich]

Riiiight...

Let's see...motive...your average out of work IT professional really has a grudge against the DoD, State and several other US government agencies AND S. Korea?

Not to say some 'out of work IT professional' couldn't be behind it...but who is behind him?

That article reeks of FUD...this time casting aspersions on IT professionals...like they are some group of radicals bent on destroying the world.

Who benefits from it NOT being N. Korea? An administration that has no backbone and isn't willing to confront the nutjobs in charge of N. Korea...
I agree. While there has certainly been some cutbacks in IT budgets for companies that have no choice, from what I have seen the IT industry has continued to grow overall. If a computer breaks it still has to be fixed. Networks still have to be attended to etc. So I don't buy the disgruntled laid off IT guy thing. It's a rather weak theory. ;)

[Variable]

Legit IT workers would risk their future careers if caught. This seems more likely to be IT workers not in Western countries and already predisposed to nefarious acts.

Here is the latest wrinkle to put fear in the hearts of populace.

http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/07/10/0452256/Korean-DDoS-Bots-To-Self-Destruct

Potential mass destruction? You would think destroying their own botnets would not be in their best interest.

You have to wonder why the US Government and others, do not impose some basic rules on ISP's to at least make the source IP valid.

[Paul Komski]

I think the reference to the German burning of parliament during WWII was in fact the Reichstag fire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire) of 1933 - it was part and parcel of the Nazis coming to power in Germany.

There are many duplicities in war but the shooting of one Polish prisoner by the Germans was nothing in comparison to the thousands of Polish officers murdered in the Katyn massacre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre) by the Russians and blamed on the Germans during WWII; only finally officially admitted by Russia in 1990.

I think that Variable is on the button with regards to the ISPs being made to take much more responsibilty for the traffic through their portals.

[minus-sign]

Well, I do tend to find it a dubious claim that someone just popped and did this on their own, but I also find it hard to believe that N.Korea has been developing a secret hacker school and this is the first fruits of their labor coming alight (then again, we are talking about MyDoom here. If they started training their guys on it when it forst came out...maybe it is North Korea:p ).

It would be much easier to hire out work like this, imho. Thats what I meant with the rogue IT comment.

[Variable]

Not even that hard, all you need is money. The botnets already exist. They even have control panels. Sylvander or Paul posted a BBC link not to long ago with a show just how it is done. Since it happened on the 4th, affected South Korea and the US, it could be just what it seems. But it also could be a black hat operation to increase funding for the US Cyber defence team I suppose. If you know anything about DDoS attacks you would know there is no real defence except capacity. You would have to be able to get in to large numbers of backbone routers at a moments notice and dump huge files somewhere then backtrack it all in real time. Unless you have the dump files running all the time.

[mjc]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090711/ap_on_re_as/as_skorea_cyberattack

[Variable]

Those bass turds. Lab 110? Sounds like a new SyFy show.

[PrntRhd]

Turns out the attacks may have been directed from a server in the UK, not NK?
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9135492/U.K._not_North_Korea_source_of_DDOS_attacks_resear cher_says?source=CTWNLE_nlt_security_2009-07-14

[Variable]

Could be a NK infiltrator from Lab 110 was visiting London (for the food, no doubt) and thus, NK is still responsible. Those Lab 110 guys are tricksy.

[mjc]

'Behind the attack' can mean a lot of things...and I wouldn't be surprised if this 'behind' was paying someone to do it...