Unrest in Iran - Cyber-Attacks Begin in earnest

An apparently ad-hoc cyber protest against the results of recent Iranian elections has knocked out key Web sites in the country.

On Monday, sites belonging to Iranian news agencies, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were knocked off-line after activists opposed to the Iranian government posted tools designed to barrage these Web sites with traffic.

This type of attack, known as a denial of service (DoS) attack, has become a standard political protest tool, and has been used by grassroots protesters in several cyber-incidents over the past few years, including cyber events in Estonia in 2007 and Georgia last year.

Activists had encouraged anti-government protesters to use automatic Web page refresh tools such as Pagereboot.com, to hit government run site. But they have also developed custom DoS tools. One such tool, called BWRaeper was posted to an Iranian sports discussion forum on Monday. Others are being promoted via Twitter and blogs, and hosted by activists in the U.S.

The "campaign is starting to target international users, compared to the original one aiming to recruit Iranians only," said Dancho Danchev, a security consultant who has blogged about the tools. "Judging by the effect this crowdsourcing is having, they've disrupted the sites set as targets."

Danchev counts 12 sites as being under attack, including other news agencies, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice, National Police, and the Ministry of the Interior.

In response to the attacks, state-sponsored Iranian News site Fars News added a small piece of Web code that redirected the attack to pro-opposition Web sites, Danchev said via instant message. "Apparently, they thought that the attackers wouldn't stop their attack since they were also indirectly loading the [attack code]," he added. "They, however, didn't stop the attack."

Web disruptions have occurred on both sides of the dispute. Last month, Iran blocked access to Facebook, apparently to prevent opposition voters from using the social networking service to promote their candidates in last week's elections. YouTube and the BBC's Web site have also reportedly been blocked. BBC satellite service to the country has also been jammed.

General Internet service in Iran was also disrupted, though that lasted for just a short period of time, according to network monitoring company Renesys.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in Iran to protest the results of last week's presidential elections. Protesters claim that their candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, lost because the election was fixed by the government.

Although it has been reported as inaccessible by some Iranian users, Twitter has emerged as the major source of information on the protests, and is being credited with driving coverage of the event on U.S. television networks such as CNN.

Four Tele-commuting Security Mistakes

1. Careless use of Wi-Fi and accessing unsecured open networks
2. Letting family and friends use work-issued devices and attaching unauthorised peripherals
   
3. Altering or deleting security settings to view Web sites that have been blocked by the company
4. Leaving a work-issued device in an unsecured place or public location

Security is a good mind-set to adopt

For more information and assistance, speak to your IT Helpdesk and Security personnel . They have a range of proven and tested (approved) tools, which are closely aligned with simple operating procedures and guidelines to help you reduce the potential impact of threats and vulnerabilities. The effective use and implementation of these, is up to you.

Remember to check with the security guys regularly. There is always something new going on in their world that will directly affect your business world.

If in doubt give the Security doctor a shout!

As with most things, it is always easier to find security issues and threats before they escalate into a crisis. A mild infection can be treated quickly and effectively if brought to their attention early but, if left untreated, there is always the risk of cross-infection to other members of staff, with the potential loss of a limb or vital organ.

In your business world, it is your server, applications and your data that keeps you alive! You don't want to lose any of these or even break the arterial chain that holds them together.