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US-CERT Technical Cyber Security Alert TA12-024A

Hi,

Does Sophos already identified these sites are malware content sites? did Sophos take any action on this?

It was alarming to us because we have mobile users that are connecting to external network and might be infected on these coded and propagate to our network.

 your comment on this is greatly appreciated. thank you

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
National Cyber Alert System

             Technical Cyber Security Alert
TA12-024A


"Anonymous" DDoS Activity

  Original release date:
January 24, 2012
  Last revised: --
  Source:
US-CERT


Overview

  US-CERT has received information from
multiple sources about
coordinated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks with
targets that included U.S. government agency and entertainment
  industry websites. The loosely affiliated collective
"Anonymous"
allegedly promoted the attacks in response to the shutdown of the
  file hosting site MegaUpload and in protest of proposed U.S.
 
legislation concerning online trafficking in copyrighted
  intellectual
property and counterfeit goods (Stop Online Piracy
  Act, or SOPA, and
Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic
  Creativity and Theft of
Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA).


I. Description

  US-CERT
has evidence of two types of DDoS attacks: One using HTTP
  GET requests and
another using a simple UDP flood.

The Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) is a denial-of-service attack tool
  associated with previous Anonymous activity.
US-CERT has reviewed
  at least two implementations of LOIC. One variant is
written in
  JavaScript and is designed to be used from a web browser.
An
  attacker can access this variant of LOIC on a website and select
 
targets, specify an optional message, throttle attack traffic, and
  monitor
attack progress. A binary variant of LOIC includes the
ability to join a botnet to allow nodes to be controlled via IRC or
  RSS command channels (the
"HiveMind" feature).

  The following is a sample of LOIC traffic recorded
in a web server
  log:

    "GET
/?id=1327014400570&msg=We%20Are%20Legion! HTTP/1.1" 200
    99406
"hxxp://pastehtml.com/view/blafp1ly1.html" "Mozilla/5.0
   
(Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:9.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/9.0.1"

  The
following sites have been identified in HTTP referrer headers
  of suspected
LOIC traffic. This list may not be complete. Please do
  not visit any of the
links as they may still host functioning LOIC
  or other malicious
code.

    "hxxp://3g.bamatea.com/loic.html"
    "hxxp://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/"
    "hxxp://chatimpacto.org/Loic/"
    "hxxp://cybercrime.hostzi.com/Ym90bmV0/loic/"
    "hxxp://event.seeho.co.kr/loic.html"
    "hxxp://pastehtml.com/view/bl3weewxq.html"
    "hxxp://pastehtml.com/view/bl7qhhp5c.html"
    "hxxp://pastehtml.com/view/blafp1ly1.html"
    "hxxp://pastehtml.com/view/blakyjwbi.html"
    "hxxp://pastehtml.com/view/blal5t64j.html"
    "hxxp://pastehtml.com/view/blaoyp0qs.html"
    "hxxp://www.lcnongjipeijian.com/loic.html"
    "hxxp://www.rotterproxy.info/browse.php/704521df/ccc21Oi8/
   
vY3liZXJ/jcmltZS5/ob3N0emk/uY29tL1l/tOTBibVY/wL2xvaWM/v/b5/
   
fnorefer"
    "hxxp://www.tandycollection.co.kr/loic.html"
    "hxxp://www.zgon.cn/loic.html"
    "hxxp://zgon.cn/loic.html"
   
"hxxp://www.turbytoy.com.ar/admin/archivos/hive.html"

 
The following are the A records for the referrer sites as of
  January, 20,
2012:

    3g[.]bamatea[.]com                A    218[.]5[.]113[.]218
 
  cybercrime[.]hostzi[.]com         A    31[.]170[.]161[.]36
   
event[.]seeho[.]co[.]kr           A    210[.]207[.]87[.]195
   
chatimpacto[.]org                 A    66[.]96[.]160[.]151
   
anonymouse[.]org                  A    193[.]200[.]150[.]125
   
pastehtml[.]com                   A    88[.]90[.]29[.]58
   
lcnongjipeijian[.]com             A    49[.]247[.]252[.]105
   
www[.]rotterproxy[.]info          A    208[.]94[.]245[.]131
   
www[.]tandycollection[.]co[.]kr   A    121[.]254[.]168[.]87
   
www[.]zgon[.]cn                   A    59[.]54[.]54[.]204
   
www[.]turbytoy[.]com[.]ar         A    190[.]228[.]29[.]84

  The HTTP
requests contained an "id" value based on UNIX time and
  user-defined "msg"
value, for example:

    GET
/?id=1327014189930&msg=%C2%A1%C2%A1NO%20NOS%20GUSTA%20LA%20

 
Other "msg" examples:

   
msg=%C2%A1%C2%A1NO%20NOS%20GUSTA%20LA%20
    msg=:)
    msg=:D
   
msg=Somos%20Legion!!!
    msg=Somos%20legi%C3%B3n!
   
msg=Stop%20S.O.P.A%20:)%20%E2%99%AB%E2%99%AB HTTP/1.1" 200 99406
   
"http://pastehtml.com/view/bl7qhhp5c.html"
    msg=We%20Are%20Legion!
    msg=gh
   
msg=open%20megaupload
   
msg=que%20sepan%20los%20nacidos%20y%20los%20que%20van%20a%20nacer
 
 
%20que%20nacimos%20para%20vencer%20y%20no%20para%20ser%20vencidos
 
  msg=stop%20SOPA!!
   
msg=We%20are%20Anonymous.%20We%20are%20Legion.%20We%20do%20not%20
 
  forgive.%20We%20do%20not%20forget.%20Expect%20us!

  The "msg"
field can be arbitrarily set by the attacker.

  As of January 20, 20012,
US-CERT has observed another attack that
  consists of UDP packets on ports
25 and 80. The packets contained a
  message followed by variable amounts of
padding, for example:

    66:6c:6f:6f:64:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00
| flood.........

  Target selection, timing, and other attack activity is
often
  coordinated through social media sites or online forums.

 
US-CERT is continuing research efforts and will provide additional
  data as
it becomes available.


II. Solution

  There are a number of
mitigation strategies available for dealing
  with DDoS attacks, depending on
the type of attack as well as the
  target network infrastructure. In
general, the best practice
  defense for mitigating DDoS attacks involves
advanced preparation.

  * Develop a checklist or Standard Operating
Procedure (SOP) to
    follow in the event of a DDoS attack. One critical
point in a
    checklist or SOP is to have contact information for your ISP
and
    hosting providers. Identify who should be contacted during a
   
DDoS, what processes should be followed, what information is
    needed, and
what actions will be taken during the attack with
    each entity.
 
 
* The ISP or hosting provider may provide DDoS mitigation services.
   
Ensure your staff is aware of the provisions of your service
    level
agreement (SLA).
 
  * Maintain contact information for firewall teams,
IDS teams,
network teams and ensure that it is current and readily available.
 
  * Identify critical services that must be maintained
during an
    attack as well as their priority. Services should be
prioritized
    beforehand to identify what resources can be turned off
or
    blocked as needed to limit the effects of the attack. Also,
   
ensure that critical systems have sufficient capacity to
    withstand a DDoS
attack.
 
  * Have current network diagrams, IT infrastructure details,
and
    asset inventories. This will assist in determining actions and
   
priorities as the attack progresses.
 
  * Understand your current
environment and have a baseline of daily
    network traffic volume, type,
and performance. This will allow
    staff to better identify the type of
attack, the point of attack,
    and the attack vector used. Also, identify
any existing
    bottlenecks and remediation actions if required.
 
 
* Harden the configuration settings of your network, operating
    systems,
and applications by disabling services and applications
    not required for
a system to perform its intended function.
 
  * Implement a bogon block
list at the network boundary.
 
  * Employ service screening on edge
routers wherever possible in
    order to decrease the load on stateful
security devices such as
    firewalls.
 
  * Separate or
compartmentalize critical services:

     * Separate public and private
services
     * Separate intranet, extranet, and internet services
     *
Create single purpose servers for each service such as HTTP,
       FTP, and
DNS
     * Review the US-CERT Cyber Security Tip Understanding
     
Denial-of-Service Attacks.

:21525


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