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posted by Fnord666 on Friday February 24 2017, @10:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the good-luck-with-that dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

The Department of Homeland Security said it has launched a multi-faceted attempt to defend the nation's computer networks from hackers in light of witnessing a dramatic surge recently with respect to the number of crippling cyberattacks being waged against internet infrastructure.

The DHS's Science and Technology Directorate on Thursday said its cybersecurity division has set its sights on safeguarding the internet against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, an elementary but effective tactic used by hackers to overload a network with illegitimate web traffic to render it useless.

An unprecedented DDoS attack waged in October 2016 targeted Dyn, an internet performance company that runs a popular domain name system that effectively functions as an online directory. Millions of computer users across North American and Europe suffered internet disruptions due to the assault, the likes of which was waged by infecting millions of common, "Internet of Things" start devices with a strain of malicious software known as Mirai.

[...] To stifle future attacks, DHS said it's Distributed Denial of Service Defense (DDoSD) project has spearheaded a three-pronged approach intended to give network infrastructure defenders an advantage over malicious actors.

"The project's two primary focuses are on increasing deployment of best practices to slow attack scale growth and defending networks against a one Tbps attack through development of collaboration tools that can be used by medium-size organizations," DHS said in a statement.

A third component aims to address other types of DDoS attacks, specifically including assaults that could be used to disrupt access to 911 and other emergency services.

Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/18/homeland-security-sets-sights-curbing-wide-scale-d/


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  • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday February 24 2017, @06:17PM

    by butthurt (6141) on Friday February 24 2017, @06:17PM (#471223) Journal

    > [...] regulating IoT stuff before allowing it to connect [...]

    That will include modems, routers and Wi-Fi access points, yes? But let's not stop there. General-purpose computers can be hijacked for DDOS attacks, too. Inspectors could confiscate all computers that are running vulnerable software.

    /article.pl?sid=17/02/17/0229227 [soylentnews.org]
    /article.pl?sid=17/02/20/0631212 [soylentnews.org]

    > That way all attacks will come from abroad and can then be blamed on Russia.

    The USA and Russia are getting on better than they have in a century; why spoil that? Attacks from abroad can be stopped by a firewall. Look what the Chinese have. They built a wall and you can see it from space. It's great.

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