Cyber-Attack on United States and South Korea Websites

The government and commercial websites in the United States and South Korea had a massive denial-of-service attack in the past few days.

More information is leaked out as the security researchers work to break down the malicious code tied to a DDOS attack that hits the government and commercial sites in the United States and South Korea.

According to security researchers, the attacks are the work of malware that infected users and routed traffic to government commercial sites stating during the first week of July. Some researchers also claimed that the malware is an updated version of the infamous MyDoom worm that plagued Windows users back in 2004.

“It’s definitely not an updated version of MyDoom,I’m not really seeing all that many similarities…most of the code seems to be unique.” said Mr.Joe Stewart, director of malware research for SecureWorks’ Counter Threat Unit.

According to Mr.Joe Stewart, director of malware research for SecureWorks’ Counter Threat Unit, connections between MyDoom and the malware involved in the attack may be overplayed.

Initially, On July 5, reported list of sites to be attacked included only five U.S government sites. However on the following day the counter reached to 21 sites, including some sites of the private sector. On July 7, the list was updated to reach 26 sites including some sites from South Korea.

U.S. Department of Treasury, the White House, the Federal Trade Commission and the Washington Post was the major sites affected by the attack in the Unites States. Some of the organizations are reported to have fended off the attacks.

“I am a little suspicious over the timing of this attack, We are still not clear about the purpose or motivation. The target list is somewhat unique in that iDefense has not seen these organizations lumped together like this in the past. As the Obama administration tries to come to grips with the new cyber-security policy, this event will be highlighted on the front of their radar screens. My question is this: who would most benefit from an attack like this now?” said Rick Howard, the director of iDefense Security Intelligence.

The purpose of such attack could be gaining  attention worldwide.

“Most of the DDOS botnets we see are written by people that are doing this for profit, and there doesn’t seem to be a profit motive for this one. It’s just sending a lot of traffic… to try and flood [the sites],” said Joe Stewart.

So far, Stewart said his analysis of the code has not found any conclusive proof about the origin of the attack.

“There’s a few strings here, there’s the word China, and then there’s the Korean language type that they are using in the Web requests that they’re sending to the attacked site, but anybody can put that in there to throw you off the trail,That doesn’t say anything to me conclusively at all.” said Jow stewart.

On the other side, The South Korea’s National Intelligence Service claimed that North Korea or its sympathizers were behind the attack. This is not the first time when such matter happened. Just a year back, attackers defaced Lithuanian government and commercial Websites with anti-Lithuanian rhetoric and a communist hammer and sickle symbol.

Among the South Korean Websites affected were the presidential Blue House and the Defense Ministry, as well as some banking sites.

At the moment, the motives of the attackers remain unclear. No data was stolen, and it appears that the only impact was the take-down of some high-profile sites.

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