{"id":2127,"date":"2016-10-27T21:04:03","date_gmt":"2016-10-27T19:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/?p=2127"},"modified":"2016-10-28T14:17:52","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T12:17:52","slug":"learning-from-the-dyn-attack-what-are-the-right-questions-to-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=2127","title":{"rendered":"Learning from the Dyn attack: What are the right questions to ask?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The attack on DNS provider <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dyn.com\">DYN<\/a>\u2019s infrastructure that took down a number of web sites is now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkreading.com\/attacks-breaches\/ddos-on-dyn-used-malicious-tcp-udp-traffic-\/d\/d-id\/1327309\">old news<\/a>.\u00a0 While not all the facts are public, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/article\/3135434\/security\/ddos-attack-on-dyn-came-from-100000-infected-devices.html\">press<\/a> reports that once again, IoT devices played a significant role.\u00a0 Whether that it is true or not, it is a foregone conclusion that until we address security of these devices, such attacks <strong>will<\/strong> recur.\u00a0 We all get at least two swings at this problem: we can address the attacks from Things as they happen and we can work to keep Things secure in the first place.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What systems do we need to look at?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>End nodes (Cameras, DVRs, Refrigerators, etc);<\/li>\n<li>Home and edge firewall systems;<\/li>\n<li>Provider network security systems;<\/li>\n<li>Provider peering edge routers; and<\/li>\n<li>Infrastructure service providers (like DYN)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In addition, researchers, educators, consumers and governments all have a role to play.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2134 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-10-27-at-7.43.09-PM-300x173.png\" alt=\"Roles of IoT\" width=\"300\" height=\"173\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-10-27-at-7.43.09-PM-300x173.png 300w, https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-10-27-at-7.43.09-PM.png 544w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>What do the providers of each of those systems need to do?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What follows is a <strong>start<\/strong> at the answer to that question.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Endpoints<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s easy to pin all the blame on the endpoint developers, but doing so won\u2019t buy so much as a cup of coffee. Still, thing developers need to do a few things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Use secure design and implementation practices, such as not hardcoding passwords or leaving extra services enabled;<\/li>\n<li>Have a means to securely update their systems when a vulnerability is discovered;<\/li>\n<li>Provide network enforcement systems Manufacturer Usage Descriptions so that the networks can enforce policies around how a device was designed to operate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Home and edge firewall systems<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are some attacks that only the network can stop, and there are some attacks that the network can impede.\u00a0 Authenticating and authorizing devices is critical.\u00a0 Also, edge systems should be quite leery of devices that simply self-assert what sort of protection they require, because a hacked device can make such self-assertions just as easily as a healthy device.\u00a0 Hacked devices have recently been taking advantage of a gaming mechanism in many home routers known as <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Universal_Plug_and_Play\">Universal Plug and Play (uPnP)<\/a> which permits precisely the sorts of self-assertions should be avoided.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Provider network security systems<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Providers need to be aware of what is going on in their network.\u00a0 Defense in depth demands that they observe their own networks in search of malicious behavior, and provide appropriate mitigations.\u00a0 Although there are some good tools out there from companies like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cisco.com\">Cisco<\/a> such as Netflow and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opendns.com\/\">OpenDNS<\/a>, this is still a pretty tall order.\u00a0 Just examining traffic can be capital-intensive, but then understanding what is actually going on often requires experts, and that can get expensive.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Provider peering edge routers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The routing system of the Internet can be hijacked.\u00a0 It\u2019s important that service providers take steps to prevent that from happening.\u00a0 A number of standards have been developed, but service providers have been slow to implement for one reason or another.\u00a0 It helps to understand the source of attacks.\u00a0 Implementing filtering mechanisms makes it possible for service providers to establish accountability for the sources of attack traffic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Infrastructure providers<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Infrastructure upon which other Internet systems rely needs to be robust in the face of attack.\u00a0 DYN knows this.\u00a0 The attack succeeded anyway.\u00a0 Today, I have little advice other than to understand each attack and do what one can to mitigate it the next time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Consumers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>History has shown that people in their homes cannot be made to do much to protect themselves in a timely manner.\u00a0 Is it reasonable, for instance, to insist that a consumer to spend money to replace an old system that is known to have vulnerabilities?\u00a0 The answer may be that it depends just how old that system really is.\u00a0 And this leads to our last category&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Governments<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2135\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Capitol.png\" alt=\"The U.S. Capitol\" width=\"149\" height=\"195\" \/>Governments are already involved in cybersecurity.\u00a0 The question really is how involved with they get with IoT security.\u00a0 If the people who need to do things aren\u2019t doing them, either we have the wrong incentive model and need to find the right one, or it is likely that governments will get heavily involved.\u00a0 It\u2019s important that not happen until the technical community has some understanding as to the answers of these questions, and that may take some time.<\/p>\n<p>And so we have our work cut out for us.\u00a0 It&#8217;s brow furrowing time.\u00a0 As I wrote above, this was just a start, and it\u2019s my start at that.\u00a0 What other questions need answering, and what are the answers?<\/p>\n<p>Your turn.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><small><br \/>\nPhoto credits:<br \/>\nCapitol by <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=20239504\">Deror Avi &#8211; Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a><br \/>\nRouter by <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=2163965\">Weihao.chiu from zh, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a><br \/>\nDVR by <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=2163965\">Kabel Deutschland, CC BY 3.0<\/a><br \/>\nRouter by <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=33923282\">Cisco systems &#8211; CC BY-SA 1.0<\/a><br \/>\n<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The attack on DNS provider DYN\u2019s infrastructure that took down a number of web sites is now old news.\u00a0 While not all the facts are public, the press reports that once again, IoT devices played a significant role.\u00a0 Whether that it is true or not, it is a foregone conclusion that until we address security &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=2127\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Learning from the Dyn attack: What are the right questions to ask?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[545,536,9,1],"tags":[551,552,511],"class_list":["post-2127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iot","category-mud","category-security","category-uncategorized","tag-ddos-attacks","tag-dyn","tag-iot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2127"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2140,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127\/revisions\/2140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}