DDoS attack on GitHub included a ransom demand

[Matrix]

As we reported last week code repository, GitHub was hit with the largest DDoS attack ever recorded on Wednesday. The directed denial of service only incapacitated the site for around nine minutes, but the strike pummeled servers with data volumes reaching almost 2Tbps.

Initially, GitHub reported the attack peaking at 1.3 Tbps, but this week DDoS mitigation service Netscout Arbor confirmed that the peak was closer to 1.7Tbps — 2.5 times bigger than the previous record. These volumes were achieved using a reflection/amplification vector that exploits memcached servers to amplify the attacker’s sent data by a factor of 51,000.

Initially, the attack seemed to be random. However, cybersecurity firm Cybereason reports that analysis of the data payload revealed a ransom note. The message was embedded within a line of Python code that was delivered by the compromised machines. It demanded GitHub hand over 50 XMR (Monero cryptocurrency). This amounts to about $15,000 US.

Cybersecurity strategist Nick Bilogorskiy with Juniper Networks told SecurityWeek, “It is a pretty clever trick to embed the ransom demand inside the DOS payload. It is also fitting with the times that attackers are asking for Monero rather than Bitcoin because Monero disguises the origin, destination and amount of each transaction, making it more suitable for ransoms.”

DDoS mitigation services including Akamai, Cloudflare and Arbor are forecasting more memcached attacks on the horizon. The attack vector used to be relatively rare because it required skilled techs to execute it manually.

“[However], the attack techniques have now been weaponized and made available to all skill-levels via so-called booter/stresser [sic] botnets,” said SecurityWeek.

Fortunately, memcached attacks are relatively easy to mitigate, and admins have already begun taking preventative measures.

Ashley Stephenson, CEO of Corero Network Security said, “Overall memcached is expected to top the DDoS charts for a relatively short period of time. Ironically, as we have seen before, the more attackers who try to leverage this vector the weaker the resulting DDoS attacks as the total bandwidth of vulnerable servers is fixed and is shared across the victims.”

In other words, attackers using this vector are likely to run themselves out of business relatively quickly.

 

https://www.techspot.com/news/73568-last-week-ddos-attack-github-included-ransom-demand.html

[steven36]

It was out for like 10 minutes of and on

https://githubengineering.com/ddos-incident-report/

 

I never noticed it was even down  because they have so much  DDOS  protection . Some sites i seen were  they were offline for days are even weeks . In github's case what doesn't kill them just will make them stronger  because they just going to invest in even more protection lol .

 

The world’s largest DDoS attack took GitHub offline for fewer than 10 minutes

https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/02/the-worlds-largest-ddos-attack-took-github-offline-for-less-than-tens-minutes/

 

Hackers took almost every site  off the darknet  with a DDOS  attack in 2017 and the world’s largest  couldn't   even take the git out for a full 10 minutes . So much for the theory that DDOS is going to end the Internet .

[DKT27]

So this is what this was all about. Trying to hack, if one can use that word, for money. There I was thinking someone had something against them.

 

7 hours ago, steven36 said:

It was out for like 10 minutes of and on

https://githubengineering.com/ddos-incident-report/

 

I never noticed it was even down  because they have so much  DDOS  protection . Some sites i seen were  they were offline for days are even weeks . In github's case what doesn't kill them just will make them stronger  because they just going to invest in even more protection lol .

 

The world’s largest DDoS attack took GitHub offline for fewer than 10 minutes

https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/02/the-worlds-largest-ddos-attack-took-github-offline-for-less-than-tens-minutes/

 

Hackers took almost every site  off the darknet  with a DDOS  attack in 2017 and the world’s largest  couldn't   even take the git out for a full 10 minutes . So much for the theory that DDOS is going to end the Internet .

 

It may look easy, but such a high amount of bandwidth is expensive. These things are done so bandwidth gets used up fast. Yes, some measures work, but different methods, like in this case, are used to break those measures taken there.

[steven36]

2 hours ago, DKT27 said:

It may look easy, but such a high amount of bandwidth is expensive.

They can  afford it  they only give   1GB storage  ,1 GB a month of free bandwidth.  If you need more  you have to pay. If you paying a CDN provider a fee to keep you're project  online   it there job to keep it online no one cares if is it easy they will just switch somewhere else if  they have  lots of downtime .

https://help.github.com/articles/about-storage-and-bandwidth-usage/

 

Some projects  i know left github and went  somewhere  else  because  they give you hardily nothing for free  and they run out of bandwidth and can't serve there users needs . also github is very bad for taking projects offline for DMCA  when others are not .

[DKT27]

5 minutes ago, steven36 said:

They can  afford it  they only give   1GB storage  ,1 GB a month of free bandwidth.  If you need more  you have to pay.

https://help.github.com/articles/about-storage-and-bandwidth-usage/

 

Some projects  i know left github and went  somewhere  else  because  they give you hardily nothing for free  and they run out of bandwidth and can't serve there users needs . also github is very bad for taking projects offline for DMCA  when others are not .

 

I see. I was not aware about it. Still, bandwidth is not cheap, especially the amount mention in the article above here.

[steven36]

43 minutes ago, DKT27 said:

 

I see. I was not aware about it. Still, bandwidth is not cheap, especially the amount mention in the article above here.

if i'm paying for bandwidth witch i do   i pay for  unlimited  bandwidth to many filehosters  and torrents  at another site . If they  don't   provide me with what  they promise  and have lots of downtime or lots of things don't work,  i will just  take my business to another site  when it comes time to renew .  Only thing i care about if i'm paying for something is  they fix it in a  timely manner and  put stuff in place   to keep it from happening again,  thats what we pay them for.

 

These  companies get rich from the end users be it a cloud hosting like github  or a blog or torrent site  providing you with warez  .  If they want to keep getting paid they will pay to fix it.  I fell bad when it happens to a non profit site  but i do not feel bad  for sites that get paid that's what they signed up for when they started there businesses .

[DKT27]

24 minutes ago, steven36 said:

if i'm paying for bandwidth witch i do   i pay for  unlimited  bandwidth to many filehosters  and torrents  at another site . If they  don't   provide me with what  they promise  and have lots of downtime or lots of things don't work,  i will just  take my business to another site  when it comes time to renew .  Only thing i care about if i'm paying for something is  they fix it in a  timely manner and  put stuff in place   to keep it from happening again,  thats what we pay them for.

 

Good point. But server bandwidth is not unlimited and fixed. Meaning whoever is providing services, does not have a luxury of unlimited bandwidth and such.

[steven36]

1 hour ago, DKT27 said:

 

Good point. But server bandwidth is not unlimited and fixed. Meaning whoever is providing services, does not have a luxury of unlimited bandwidth and such.

It's not unlimited  to me ether , It's  unlimited as long as i'm paid up when  the clock runs out i must pay again for more , When you have a really good dependable business you can afford  it, because  many people will pay again and again, if they can't make a profit they will just cease to exist . I don't see no were github is complaining that they can't afford it they pay other  CDNs  to protect them . It's just like insurance  that's what it's there for.

 

The site i  use for hosters  and torrents  they pay for servers all over the world they have many they host there users files on also they pay for the  premium hoster accounts for you 100s of dollars  worth of stuff for  a small set price and there are many other companies that do it as well . Some sites even do it for free with some limitations for looking at  ads and things but i rather pay for a unlimited service with no ads. Same with a paid vpn  many give you unlimited bandwith for a small set price but if you use free there is most likey a catch because they making a profit somehow. You get what you pay for. 

 

Most of the expense in bandwidth  today  is  of there own making . You take Linux distros for example,  many have torrents and things were the end user generates  there own bandwidth,   Even Windows updates has p2p technology if you want to use it .  Most  companies don't want to take advantage of this  and want to charge you for direct  bandwidth instead.   before I used hosters and things,  i  shared for years,  big files by using my own bandwidth and others shared back with theres  trough p2p technology.