Was Britain behind last week's cyberattack?

Posted By Brian Fung Wednesday, July 15, 2009 - 5:46 PM Share

Remember that massive cyberattack on U.S. and South Korean Web sites last week? The intensity of the incident, which may have involved as many as 166,000 "zombie" computers, initially led Seoul to believe its neighbor to the north was responsible. But now, a world-hopping investigation shows the attackers could have been virtually anywhere:

According to BKIS, infected computers had tried to contact one of eight so-called command and control servers every three minutes. These machines then gave instructions to the hacked PC - generally ordering them to direct traffic straight at victim websites, in [an] attempt to overload them and force them to crash.
But these eight servers were themselves being controlled by a single source, which evidence indicated was located somewhere in Britain.

The Brighton-based company controlling the servers in question then blamed a VPN connection (a secure internet link that allows users to access server files from remote locations) maintained by an Argentinian firm's outpost in Miami, Florida.

Oh, and the cybersecurity company responsible for all this gumshoeing? It's Vietnamese.

EXPLORE:BRITAIN, INTERNET

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AJW93

8:11 AM ET

July 16, 2009

wow...

The paper's grasp of the obvious is truly astounding:

But now, a world-hopping investigation shows the attackers could have been virtually anywhere

Right. Because it's a cyber-attack. How long before the illustrious Guardian figures out that where the attackers were might not have anything to do with why they were doing it? Or, gasp, that they might not have been state actors at all?

Sheesh. I know that's a seriously cranky comment. I need more coffee.

GRAYGHOST

5:35 PM ET

July 16, 2009

Britain attacking the U.S.? It's Not 1812

It is a huge stretch to ask whether "Britain" was behind the cyberattack, even if the controlling source was located in the UK - which is far from certain. Use of the name "Britain" implies that the government was behind the attack. That is not a remotely credible suggestion - unless backed by hard evidence.
Anyway, if the British government was indeed behind the attack, one might hope it would have been slightly more effective. You might note that an official from the Korea Communications Commission told the Korea Times: "We don't know that the attackers were actually based in Britain, or mainly hacked a British IP address and used it for delivery." Heck, we don't even know if they were British!

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