OpenDNS Exposes Year's Top Cyberattacks In 3D

To capture the massive volume and scale of these incidents, OpenDNS created a short 3D video of the DNS activity generated by each of them

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 10, 2013 - OpenDNS, the world's leading provider of cloud-delivered security services, today announced findings by its research organization into the most significant cyber attacks of 2013. Red October, Kelihos, Syrian Electronic Army DNS Hijack, Syria Internet shutdown and Cryptolocker topped the list of malicious internet events over the past twelve months. To capture the massive volume and scale of these incidents, OpenDNS created a short 3D video of the DNS activity generated by each of them: http://www.opendns.com/2013

"Visualization is a key component in using Big Data security techniques to detect and protect against complex, sophisticated attacks, which is what we are demonstrating with this video," said Dan Hubbard, CTO of OpenDNS and head of Umbrella Security Labs. "Organizations and their security practitioners can no longer simply rely on traditional signature and perimeter-based defenses. Security has to move at Internet speed. OpenDNS has pioneered Big Data techniques and analytics to predict and block threats before they can compromise endpoint devices or extract data to command and control servers."

Top Five Cyber Attacks of 2013

Red October

Advanced cyber-espionage network discovered by Kaspersky Labs was responsible for targeting select enterprises. Malware was used to "phone home" to command and control servers and exfiltrate data.

Kelihos

Complex criminal infrastructure, used to deliver the malware and steal data, continues to adapt and evade reputation systems and sandboxes with double fast fluxing networks and domain generation algorithms.

Syrian Electronic Army DNS Hijack

Visitors to some of the Internet's most popular websites were redirected to the Syrian Electronic Army's Web server, which luckily only delivered a political message, not malware.

Syria Internet Shutdown

Internet access into and out of the country was completely cut off by withdrawing the network routes that are used to reach the Syria-based .SY domain name servers.

Cryptolocker

The most sophisticated and widespread ransomware ever seen evaded firewalls, gateways and endpoint protections for weeks using a domain generation algorithm (DGA). Infected machines "phoned home" to acquire keys used to encrypt the victim's files.

Resources

Umbrella Security Labs: http://labs.umbrella.com/ Umbrella Security Graph: http://labs.umbrella.com/security-graph/

Umbrella Webcast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaQXfyBcob0&feature=youtu.be

About OpenDNS

OpenDNS is the world's leading provider of Internet security and DNS services, enabling the world to connect to the Internet with confidence on any device, anywhere, anytime. OpenDNS provides millions of businesses, schools and households with a safer, faster and more intelligent Internet experience by protecting them from malicious Web threats and providing them control over how users navigate the Internet, while dramatically increasing the network's overall performance and reliability. The company's cloud-delivered Umbrella security service protects enterprise users from malware, botnets and phishing regardless of location or device. At the heart of all OpenDNS services is the OpenDNS Global Network, the world's largest Internet-wide security network, securing 50 million active users daily through 20 data centers worldwide. For more information, please visit: www.opendns.com.