Real and cyber warfare
In the early hours of September 1, 1939, World War II broke out. 14 German divisions divided into three roads, from the north, south and west at the same time invaded Poland, Poland army six groups of 800,000 people formed the defensive line immediately collapsed. Dispersed and slow to move, the Polish army was quickly broken up in pieces, and by the end of the “Battle of Buzura” on September 21, the main force had been completely destroyed. The short duration of the war surprised everyone, and it introduced a new mode of warfare: “Blitzkrieg”.
While people marveled at the speed of the blitzkrieg, they often overlooked another factor: the comparison of forces. At that time, the German army was indeed strong, but the Polish army was not weak, and had won the “Polish-Soviet War” with the Soviet Union. Moreover, the German shock army, which actually consisted of only 14 divisions, was able to break through the lines easily and won many battles later, surprising military scientists at the time.
In July 2012, a trailer for a MOVIE made in the United States was posted on the Internet and caused an outcry among Muslims because it contained an insult to Islam. In September, a hacker group calling itself “Izdin Hassan Cyber Warriors” claimed online that it was waging a retaliatory war against the U.S. financial industry. In just a few weeks, the online services of bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp, PNC Financial Services and other financial giants have been disrupted by attacks with a name that has repeatedly made headlines: “Distributed denial of service attacks.”
Why does an unknown group of hackers keep winning against these financial giants? Costly protection systems, elite security teams, why vulnerable? What exactly is a distributed denial of service attack?
What is a distributed denial of service attack
Distributed denial-of-service attacks are coordinated denial-of-service attacks from multiple sources. The name implies two things: first, it is a denial of service attack; Second, it is a “distributed” attack.
So what is a Denial of Service (DoS)? You can think of a denial-of-service attack as anything that prevents legitimate users from accessing a service. The most typical example is making a public website inaccessible. Attackers often use a simple method of swamping service providers with requests until it is too late for legitimate users to process them.
However, large enterprises or organizations tend to have sufficient service provisioning capabilities to handle all requests from a single attacker. The attacker then organizes many cooperative partners (or computers) to request services from different locations at the same time until the service is inaccessible. This is “distributed”. In reality, attackers often don’t have that many companions, so they often use so-called botnets to control large numbers of computers.
However, problems remain. Why is this attack so powerful? What does it have to do with the Blitz? In my opinion, the fundamental principle for both of them to achieve brilliant results is the same: continue to create local advantages.
Using the “blitzkrieg”, the Germans were able to concentrate their forces with the speed of their mechanised troops, effectively outcompeting the weak in every battle. The Polish army was scattered over long frontiers and vast territories and could only be broken up individually. If there was strong resistance in one position, the Germans would go round and win in another. Without friendly support, the polish position, which had been held, collapsed without a fight. Therefore, the German army can achieve far more than the military comparison of the results.
conclusion
Some features of the online world have changed. First of all, IT systems are more dependent and need a lot of environmental conditions and other applications to support, so they are more prone to weaknesses. Secondly, the attacker can observe the victim in advance compared to the physical world, so it is easier to detect weaknesses. Third, it makes it easier for attackers to organize their attack forces, allowing all controlled hosts around the world to launch attacks simultaneously. Distributed denial of service takes advantage of these features. So even with far less resources, technology and manpower than professional teams, a small group of hackers can continue to bring down financial giants. There is no other reason, just to create a local advantage.