Irish ISP downed by DDoS Ireland's largest internet service provider Eircom is blaming hackers for its second bout of recent downtime. Eircom customers could not get online for much of yesterday evening, although the firm said full access was restored from 11.15pm. Just the week before many Eircom subscribers were sent to the wrong websites thanks to …
Personally, I wouldn't call a DDoS, hacking. In a traditional sense would be taking control of a remote computer by Backdoor Trojanal activity. A DDoS is usually from a Bot Network, which is created by becoming infected, usually by a trojan, and usually from iRC ports and servers.
Eircom should be in a position to block or fend off a DDoS attack, as control of the packets is something better handled at network, rather than by a firewall, and I know I've oversimplified it, however an ISP should have the abillity and bandwith to handle a doubling of traffic with ease.
And, normal service being resumed, sounds more like a drop off in the DDoS, rather than something that Eircom itself did.
Perhaps, it is time that Eircom reviewed it's own policies and inadequacies in handling what was by their own words, merely a doubling of traffic, hardly SYN flooding at it's optimum.
N.Korea, switching targets maybe, bored with Yanks, wanting a challenge, picked on possibily,the most obsidious world power after maybe, Fiji, or Papua New Guinea.
I'd agree in it not being called a hack. And a doubling in requests shouldn't topple a network. Especially seeing they are only DNS requests.
Now correct me if I'm wrong but all that was wrong with the Eircon network was that their two dns servers were under attack. Shouldn't that mean that direct IP traffic or users that had an alternative DNS service such as OpenDNS should have been ok?
And what sort of ISP are they, who can't filter their logs to see what IP addresses were DDOsing them.
..but they must suspect, it was the first thing I thought of as I read the story.
... a link for you at the back under the rock that may not already know
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/18327
"Eircom will operate a three-strikes-and-you’re out policy “against illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) downloaders"
Icon especially selected with love and thrown at Eircom.
Hackers? More likely disgruntled customers pissed off at their appalling service managed to find some way of venting their anger at Eircom for once.
The Eircom statement on the affair is a laugh. "No customer records were exposed"- it was a DDOS attack guys- why would anyone imagine data was exposed?
Unfortunately its yet another manifestation of the ineptitude of Eircom and their broadband services. I left years ago- thank god there are alternates.......
According to the forum posts, or this:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0714/breaking15.html?via=mr
the DNS servers were sending people to porn sites during the first attack (last week). Does this imply the DNS servers were hacked? Did eircom perhaps fail to apply certain recent critical DNS patches? Or could the high traffic volumes alone have caused this?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/flame_32.png
This attack has been going on for over a week, and all that eircom are saying is that they are experiencing difficulties .......
http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/joke_32.png
eircom are saying that it is only DNS, yet most customers are not even getting assigned an IP address from the DHCP servers .... lines being dropped all over the place .... my recommendation - find another provider http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/grenade_32.png
Re: Hackers, or incompetence?
"insidious (adj) : producing serious harm in a stealthy, often gradual, manner; intending to entrap " .... http://ninjawords.com/obsidious
"N.Korea, switching targets maybe, bored with Yanks, wanting a challenge, picked on possibily,the most obsidious world power after maybe, Fiji, or Papua New Guinea." .... By Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 14th July 2009 15:03 GMT
If that is to suggest, AC, that Ireland and Celts can produce serious change in a stealthy, often gradual, manner; intending to entrap and enchant, then I would agree.
They are a QuITe MaJICal Race with Special Intelligence Services. A Stupid Civil War against Friends banded Foe taught them Well the Perceptive Nature of Reality.
And that makes them XXXXStreamly Competent. A Question which one can always ask of the First and Deputy First Ministers for Plausible Denial or Ambiguous Confirmation. [well, it is Sensitive Priceless InterNetional Intellectual Property Issues which are being BetaTested]
I have a Question of El Regers.
When do you know, when you have Cracked the System to ITs RadioActive Core and have Drivers of Infinite Choice with Absolute Powers for Controllers HyperRadioProActive in New Directions, that others who should know, also know?
Although the Wiser Tool, in Order Never to be Fooled, will Always Default to just Thinking IT has Cracked the System ... and Run an Advanced Intelligent BetaTest ........Search and ReSearch against Discovery and Library Content for No Future Entry Current for this Subject ... Virgin Territory.
"insidious (adj) : producing serious harm in a stealthy, often gradual, manner; intending to entrap " .... http://ninjawords.com/obsidious
As always enjoy your posting. And that is complimentary.
As the original poster, I would like to point out to you a glaring mistake in your reposte.
Insidious, is a completely different word, from Obsidious.
obsidious adjective. rare. E17.
[from Latin obsidium siege, from obsidere: see OBSESS, -IOUS.]
Besieging; besetting.
Thanks, AC Posted Wednesday 15th July 2009 10:12 GMT, a Jung Freudian mistake and constructive error which avoided conscious delivery. ie I didn't notice the unconscious transposition, which as you say, is complimentary.
It now allows me to Play with the Notion that through Advanced CyberIntelAIgent Design is Complimentary Unconscious Transposition of Thought Possible in Virtual Operating Systems.
Haircom don't even know what hit them. When we were dealing with them (past five years) the DNS servers would used to sit down regular every 7-8 weeks or so because they cached-up - couldn't see in or out through the node unless using IP addys. Ridiculous, I know, but you could set your watch by the brownouts.
Heard their servers are kept in a block god-knows-where, down the back, climb the ladder, move the teachests, swipe the cobwebs, hit with a hammer. That's if you can get a gentleman on a penny farthing to go down there and he has the keys.
Typically takes 24-36 hours to flush/reload to fetch DNS again. Suffice to say, it's superfluous to hack Haircom as they'll balls it up themselves without trying and won't even know they have a problem. You don't need a hacker to redirect you to a pr0n page.
This sounds like one of those head_scratching moments of Haircom wonderment and awe rather than the first strike in a Sino-Russo-nKoreo attack on Fortress Dublin.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2023
