Blame game begins over DDoS hits

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Blame game begins over DDoS hits

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After a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, questions have been raised how an IT powerhouse like Korea could have left itself so unguarded.

One of the problems is that online companies and security solution firms took too long over providing the necessary DDoS vaccines.

AhnLab, a top local security solutions firm, detected a virus connected to a DDoS attack on Monday morning, but didn’t start offering an antidote until 11:40 a.m. on Wednesday.

“It is hard to block DDoS attacks with just hardware security measures,” said Kim Hong-seon, head of AhnLab. He added that the first attack was totally different to the second attack, which meant a new vaccine has to be developed.

Shin Hwa-su, head of the user security division at Korea Information Security Agence, compared the DDoS to a department store attack in which scores of troublemakers storm in and create havoc during opening hours.

“It’s a rather simple act of disturbance, in which they can’t steal anything inside the store or break any items. The store has no official way to deal with them,” Shin said.

Experts say this week’s DDoS attacks were hard to deal with because 20,000 “zombie” PCs were involved and because Korea has one of the top wireless Internet infrastructures in the world, allowing for super high speed Internet access. This meant DDoS attacks were able to penetrate much more quickly.

A zombie computer is one that is connected to the Internet and has been compromised by a hacker.

Others argue that Korea is overly reliant on Microsoft’s ActiveX controls. Although ActiveX has many benefits and can eliminate multiple steps in installing programs online, the downside is it can be used to install viruses as well.

Another factor is Koreans do not tend to use PC security measures.

“This round of attacks could have been prevented just by updating security patches,” said a Microsoft employee who wished to remain anonymous. Even if a PC was found to be infected, it could have been dealt with quickly using AhnLab’s first round of vaccines, he said.

Meanwhile, Ahn Chul-soo, founder of AhnLab and a professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, commented through his blog yesterday that the present case of DDoS attacks is “something that we perpetrated on ourselves in a way.”

“Even 10 years ago in developed countries like the U.S. and Japan, 10 percent of the total budget [for the IT industry] was spent on security. However in Korea, it is only 1 percent,” Ahn said.

He added that the current situation can’t be solved just by specialists or security firms. “All netizens’ voluntary participation is needed,” he said.



By Cho Jae-eun, Kim Chang-woo [jainnie@joongang.co.kr]

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