#3: to prevent a huge majority of ddos attacks from happening
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demento · 8 months ago
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just saw the most godawful take ive ever read. really .
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christophermreerdon · 3 years ago
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Are You Doing Enough to Address IoT Security Vulnerabilities
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Concerns regarding cloud security are not new but the growing influence of the Internet of Things (IoT) surely is playing a huge role in enhancing the attack surface of businesses compared to traditional IT deployment thus imposing huge risks.
2021 witnessed the launching of one of the biggest DDoS attacks launched by Mris Botnet. The breach contained 200,000 malicious endpoints and as per reports, the attack strength was measured as of 21.8 M requests per second. The incident brought down many popular websites. What makes this attack even more special is that this was the second major attack after the 2016 Mirai botnet around IoT devices. Around 100,000 compromised smart routers, cameras, and other devices here enslaved into one single boned, highly focused on a single target.
Well, IoT botnets are not the only type of threat we are expecting. Simplicity and ease of use are the two crucial elements of the IoT industry and many times some IoT products simply avoid giving security too much priority thinking customers might find it too bulky. Some of the bad practices that are giving rise to the IoT security concerns are:
Poor authentication policies
Unencrypted communication
Insecure user interface
Poor privacy policies
Together with huge opportunities, the complexity of IoT implementation also imposes a huge risk for organizations. The main thing about IoT is that it changes the traditional data and cloud security measurements into ways that need to be addressed before the implementation part.
Below are some of the major security concerns with the adoption of IoT:
1. Public Safety
Since IoT is based on real-life devices, it has the capability to cause real-world damage to life and limb. Guess what can happen in case of failure of a telematics system that directs your autonomous vehicle or the electric grid or firmware operating life-sustaining medical devices.
2. Business disruption
Unlike previous times when a balky software update would mean a headache for in-house users, with IoT grounding an entire fleet of cars or trucks is also not a big deal. Even a small failure at cloud provider hosting IoT service can cause regional and sometimes global disruptions too.
3. Product liability
Now when you talk about traditional IT technologies, product liability law is quite clear but when you talk about IoT-based software and cloud-based providers, they are more likely to get failures that can lead to liability or other legal claims involving connected products.
5 Ways to address IoT security vulnerabilities
The process of IoT security is actually an extension of the basic security measurements every brand is taking since the past few years including data encryption, application firewalls, etc.  These techniques hold a great place in providing important security protection for overall security. However, if you are implementing IoT, you need a better plan when you are dealing with the IoT that includes new endpoints, data feeds, applications, and the cloud-based services that lie in an IoT ecosystem. Here I am going to share some effective ways to minimize IoT security risks.
Best practice #1. Secure cloud infrastructure
When you talk about a cloud infrastructure that deals with IoT, you need higher security at various security layers. These security measurements must contain a three-pronged approach that is highly focused on three factors i.e. integrity, confidentiality, and availability. Moreover, the communication between cloud management servers, endpoints, and IoT hubs must be encrypted in order to avoid snooping while also sanitizing the back-end databases and IoT application server inputs to prevent application-based attacks.
Additionally, access to the IoT application data and servers must be secured with the “least privilege” policies to limit the access to the sensitive data only to the right people. Adopting an adaptive two-factor authentication solution can also make a huge difference here. It will prevent unauthorized access by stepping up security measurements if the request is coming from a malicious resource, IP or location. Lastly, the physical access to data centers must be strictly controlled keeping international standards in mind.
Best practice #2. Design for security
A well-analyzed security planning is the basis of the IoT design and development process to ensure they connect and communicate securely while also preventing unauthorized attempts that are risked to compromise their identity. Adding secure design principles in the early stage of the design and development of IoT devices makes sure your product doesn’t become an easy target for cybercriminals.
Additionally performing static and dynamic testing before making a product go-live can help you better identify security vulnerabilities like cross-site scripting, SQL injection, etc. When kept as a software manifest, IoT producers can easily identify and measure the impact of any security vulnerabilities while also taking necessary measurements to update shared and open-source libraries.
Best practice #3. Secure IoT devices
Do you know IoT endpoints that are deployed in the field can’t get benefitted from the physical security protections that are offered to most IoT assets making it a very easy target to discover security weak points? Businesses that are planning to add new IoT products must take necessary measurements to secure their IoT devices from smart hackers. Below are some best practices to do that:
Enforce strong authentication for local users as well as admins
Enforms strong encryption for data at rest, device authentication, etc
Avoid backdoor entries for admin accounts
Best practice #4. Secure IoT device connections
Businesses must ensure to secure IoT device, applications, and back-end services communication using SSL/TLS encryption. Moreover, IoT applications and management interfaces should be designed in such a way that they can raise the bar for users and admins to make trivial data compromise impossible while also fighting with attacks like brute force. Lastly, logging changes and activities on endpoints must be analyzed thoroughly to clearly identify any weak points.
Best practice #5. Secure IoT services and applications
Improperly designed cloud services and IoT applications are highly vulnerable to data breaches both from internal as well as external users. Hacks like cross-site scripting or SQL injection can be easily used to gain privileged access to management interfaces and perform denial-of-service attacks. Insecure Web UI can also be used to gain account credentials. Therefore leaving IoT services and applications without any proper security measures can cause serious threats to your IoT products.
Finally, IoT has undoubtedly brought us thousands of opportunities, but without proper security measurements, it will ruin your business and its reputation. It’s high time, we should ask this question: Are we doing enough to address IoT security vulnerabilities?
https://bit.ly/3uL913S https://bit.ly/3BpBu20
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arpitram · 5 years ago
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4 Best reasons to start using VPN :
A VPN or virtual private network is service that allows you to create a secure and private connection from a device to the network. Just think of it as an online service you use to hide your digital footprints by masking your real IP address and encrypting your Internet traffic. Thanks to the regulation of internet by governments around the world and cyber-attacks by nefarious online elements, VPN has become the need of the hour. Just as you protect your personal information like your phone number and address, you now need to protect your online information. If you are still not convinced about the importance of VPN services, this article is just for you. Here we will talk about 4 important reasons as to why you should start using a VPN right now.
Reasons Why You Should be Using a VPN
While there are myriad of benefits of using a VPN, there are four important points that everyone should consider before giving up on VPN services.
A VPN Protects Your Traffic, Data, and Privacy
A VPN Lets You Unblock Any Content You Want
With a VPN, You Can Bypass Bandwidth Throttling
VPNs Offer a Better Gaming Experience
We will be talking about all these points in detail in the upcoming section. Feel free to jump to the section that you want to read.
1. A VPN Protects Your Traffic, Data, and Privacy
Have you ever experienced an online ad following you across websites? It might be for a product that you search for or already bought. Doesn't it feel creepy to be served ads for things you have searched in the past? Well, it happens because tracking pixels on websites track your searches and then tailor the ads for you.
The above situation that I described is just a fraction of problems that you as an internet user have to deal with while going online. I have not even mentioned the privacy problems that come with using internet. Just to give you a taste of what I am talking about, consider the fact that your internet service provider or ISP is probably selling your internet usage data to make money off you while you are already paying them for the service. In short, if you are going online without a VPN, you’re exposing yourself to the following risks:
- Giving hackers a free pass to eavesdrop on your online communications when you use public WiFi.
- Making it easy for cyber-criminals, government surveillance agencies, and ISPs to see what you type on unencrypted websites, what web page you search for, and what files you download (just to name a few examples).
- Letting your ISP sell your browsing data to advertisers.
- Ending up in legal trouble for torrenting files, and leaking your IP address to every member of the Swarm (total number of people downloading and uploading a torrent).
Using a VPN prevents all these horrible scenarios. VPN encrypts your connection using encryption technologies, such as IP security (IPSec), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), Transport Layer Security (TLS) and more. When you use a VPN anyone snooping in on your connection, whether it's your ISP, online tracking pixels, or hackers, see gibberish data.
2. A VPN Lets You Unblock Any Content You Want
Few things are as annoying in life as hearing about a cool new TV series only to later find out you can’t watch it because it’s only available on streaming platforms that don’t work in your country. Sky Go, Hulu, HBO GO, BBC iPlayer – you name it. There are tons of websites that won’t let you enjoy their content simply because you’re from “the wrong” part of the world.
Yes, they have their reasons for doing that (copyright regulations and licensing fees), but that hardly makes it fair. Worst of all, you’re gonna deal with geo-restrictions even if you live in a country where you have access to all the content you want. After all, it’s no longer going to be available the moment you go abroad on vacation, or temporarily move outside the country for work.
geoblocking
And don’t forget about Internet censorship! If geo-blocks aren’t a concern, the government telling you what you can and can’t watch online should be. Many oppressive regimes force national ISPs to block various websites nation-wide. Take China for example. Due to its strict internet policies, its residents and visitors cannot access popular websites like Facebook (although, I am not crying for that), YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and more. Oh, and then there are firewalls. You know - the kinds of restrictions you’ll deal with at work or school if the network admin has to block websites like Facebook or Instagram to comply with the workplace or school policies.
How does a VPN help you with all that, you ask? Simple – it masks your real IP address, which contains data that leaks your geo-location (info that geo-blocks need to be efficient), and which firewalls also use to enforce restrictions. You can even select which country you want your connection to seem to originate from. For example, you can select USA as your VPN connection country and then your connection will seem to originate from the US allowing you to access all the geo-restricted content.
3. With a VPN, You Can Bypass Bandwidth Throttling
Did you ever notice a sudden decrease in online speeds whenever you were downloading something, watching an online video, or Skyping with your friends? That’s basically bandwidth throttling in action. It’s when your ISP reduces some of your Internet speed because you’re using up “too much data.” ISPs are pretty clever and they hide the bandwidth throttling in fine prints so most users are not even aware of it. You might have a fast 50 Mbps internet connection. However, it won't be the same everywhere as ISPs generally throttle speed if you are torrenting or streaming 4K content.
Bandwidth Throttling
ISPs might claim they’re doing that to prevent network congestion, which is understandable. However, usually, ISPs use bandwidth throttling to pressure users into buying pricier subscriptions and data plans. They also get to save money that way by making sure they don’t need to buy more expensive equipment to process user data faster.
Using a VPN can alleviate this problem. A VPN encrypts your Internet traffic, making sure your ISP can’t see your Internet activity. Without that info, your ISP can no longer throttle your bandwidth since they won’t see what you’re doing online.
4. VPNs Offer a Better Gaming Experience
Playing online with your friends is extremely fun – at least until you have to deal with an annoying IP ban or geo-blocks preventing you from playing in the same region as your friends. That’s where a VPN comes into play.
It hides your IP address and encrypts your traffic, making sure you can evade IP bans from sore loser admins, prevent bandwidth throttling from ruining your fun, and join matches in any region you want no matter where you are in the world. If you play online multiplayer games, a VPN can help reduce ping time and lag if it has a solid server in that country. This is a huge gain if you compete in online gaming competitions as every millisecond matters at pro-level gaming tournaments.
Gaming
Besides that, you also get other additional perks:
You no longer have to worry about DoS/DDoS attacks from jealous players targeting you and ruining your killstreaks.
You get instant access to banned or uncensored video games (extremely useful if you live in or travel through Australia).
No longer having to wait a week or two until a new game gets released in your region since you can just “pretend” you’re from another region where the game is already available.
How to Choose the Right VPN Service
With nearly 1,000 (or more) VPN providers on the market, picking the right one can feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Also, since we are using multiple devices, it's not fun to choose a VPN service and find that it's not available on multiple platforms. After all, you don't want to use different VPN services for Windows, Android, iOS and other platforms. That's why, before you choose a VPN service, make sure that you focus on some key features to have a slightly easier time finding the ideal VPN for you:
- A no-log policy
- Powerful encryption
- Cross-platform compatible apps
- Kill Switch features
- P2P support
- Lots of speedy servers
Of course, that doesn’t narrow things down too much as many VPN services claim to offer all these features. Looking up dozens of VPN providers, and closely analyzing all their features is a huge time-sink – not to mention how it takes a lot of effort. That's why we took it on ourselves to test out all the major VPN service providers. If you want a shortcut, we recommend that you check out Private Internet Access (PIA). Their VPN service offers military-grade security, is user-friendly, and you can run it on up to 10 simultaneous devices. Overall, Private Internet Access is a great VPN. If you’d like to read an in-depth review of the service, just follow the link.
Source :
For more understanding and learning, you can connect me on www.arpitram.com or www.arpitram.in. See you all with more interesting thoughts on the world of IT world.
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pcheaven30 · 3 years ago
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How to Improve your WordPress Website Security?
What is WordPress?
Technically speaking, WordPress is a free and open-source content management system written in PHP and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database. Now, in simpler words, WordPress is the easiest, most well-liked way to generate your own website or blog. In fact, 40% of the websites on the Internet are powered by WordPress. WordPress in addition to powering a huge number of business sites and blogs, also is the most well liked way to create an eCommerce store WordPress sanctions:
Business websites Social networks Blogs Resumes eCommerce stores Membership sites Forums Portfolios And a lot more…
Also Read : How to Install WordPress in 3 Simple Steps
What is website security?
Web security is also referred as “Cybersecurity”. It fundamentally means protecting your website or web application by detecting, preventing and responding to cyber threats.Websites and web applications are just as prone to security holes as physical homes, stores, and government locations.Regrettably, cybercrime happens on a daily basis, and great web security measures are needed to protect websites and web applications from becoming compromised.That’s exactly what web security does – it is an arrangement of protection measures and protocols that protect your website or web application from being hacked or entered by unlicensed personnel.This integral division of Information Security is essential for the defence of websites, web applications, and web services.Anything that is functional over the Internet should have some form of web security to protect it.
Why would you want to Improve your WordPress security?
Many Folks think their sites are safe from attacks since they don’t contain treasured and sensitive business information. However, that might not be true. There are plenty of reasons why internet sites get hacked, like:
To spread malware Black-hat Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Addition of bandwidth to bot networks, which are often used for Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks Activism / Hacktivism Just for practice and fun
Also Read : What is a Domain Name?
Why WordPress websites get targeted more?
⦁ Many WordPress websites lack basic security ⦁ No two-factor authentication ⦁ No records and activity logs ⦁ No security hardening and protection ⦁ Weak password use is endemic ⦁ WordPress is the most widespread CMS (Content       Management System) ⦁ Use of outdated WordPress core, plugins & other software.
As per a study by Sucuri, a multi-platform security company, WordPress continues to lead the infected websites they worked on (at 90%).
📷image credit: sucuri.net
13 ways to improve WordPress Website Security
1. Install a WordPress Security Plugin
It’s a time-consuming work to habitually check your website security for malware and unless you frequently update your knowledge of coding practices you may not even comprehend you’re looking at a piece of malware written into the code.Luckily others have realized that not every person is a developer and have put out WordPress security plugins to support.
📷image credit: wordpress.org
A security plugin takes care your site security, scans for malware and monitors your site 24/7 to repeatedly check what’s happening on your site. Sucuri.net is an excellent WordPress security plugin. They offer remote malware scanning, security activity auditing, file integrity monitoring, post-hack security actions, blacklist monitoring, effective security hardening, security notifications, and even website firewall.
2. Build a Safe Foundation with a Trustworthy Host
Your hosting company is typically the first wall hackers have to disrupt through to access your siteSecure your WordPress website by capitalizing in a hosting company that gears proper security measures. This contains support for the up-to-date version of PHP, MySQL, and Apache as well as a firewall and 24/7 security monitoring. Also, look that they propose SFTP or SSH connections instead of the less secure FTP. Choose a hosting company that accomplishes daily backups and steady malware scans. Find hosting companies that employ numerous DDoS prevention measures. Always check what your hosting company offers in terms of help to recover compromised websites. If unsure, ask your host what security measures they have in place.
Also Read : How to Factory Reset Windows 10
3. Use Strong Passwords to Close Off Points of Entry
Passwords proves to be one of the frail points of every website. Luckily, they’re also something you have control over. In order to keep your WordPress website protected, be sure to use strong passwords for:Your user accounts The WordPress database Email address FTP accounts Your hosting accounts Everything else that is related with your site Also, change your passwords often. If you can’t come up with a durable password yourself, you can let a password generator create one for you.
4. Restrict File Editing
When you are setting up your WordPress site there’s a code editor function in your dashboard which permits you to edit your theme and plugin.Access it by going to Appearance>Editor. You can also find the plugin editor by going under Plugins>Editor. Once your site is live, we suggest that you disable this feature. If hackers gain access to your WordPress admin panel, they can insert subtle, malicious code to your theme and plugin. Often times the code will be so indirect you may not notice anything is mistaken until it is too late. To disable the skill to edit plugins and the theme file, just paste the below code in your wp-config.php file. define(‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true);
Also Read : How to Reset Forgotten Password in Windows 10
5. Guard Your Computer, Avoid Being a Risk Factor
If your computer is infected with a virus and yet you contact your site or upload files to it, those files can pollute your website as well. To evade that, make sure to:Install antivirus software and a firewall and keep them updated. Run virus and malware checks on your software regularly. Refrain from using free Wi-Fi networks to access your site or use a VPN Update your operating system and other vital software (such as your web browser).
6. Log Out Idle Users and Avoid Third-Party Screwups
Log out idle users after a period of inoperativeness. It prevents you and others from compromising your site by accidentally staying logged in on a public computer or when they walk away from the screen for a while. It is essential because your session can be hijacked and hackers can manipulate the situation for their profit. It’s even more vital to dismiss inactive sessions if you have several users on your website. You can also use a plugin like Inactive Logout to automatically do that.
7. Vague Your Administrator Account: Post as a Editor or Contributor
WordPress automatically creates an author archive for all author profile who publishes something on the site. It’s generally located under something like https://pcheaven.in/author/sanskriti Therefore, consider creating a contributor or an editor account to feature new posts and articles to your site.
Also Read : How to Disable Cortana on Windows 10
8. Practice a Backup Service or Plugin for Much-Needed Insurance
A backup system helps you restore your site if the worst happens and your site ends up being hacked. Here are some plugins and services for that purpose:BackWPup BlogVault VaultPress UpdraftPlus
Note:
Back up both your site files and database — WordPress websites comprise of two parts. Ensue that you save both of them. Store the backup files offsite — Ensure that your backup files go to Dropbox, Google Drive, or an alike service, not your own server. Create a regular schedule — Set your backups to happen automatically at consistent intervals.
9. Harden The Admin Area and Avoid Brute Force Attack
1. Modify the Default Admin and Login URL
By default, the URLs to log into your site are located at yourdomain.com/wp-admin or yourdomain.com/wp-login.php. Hackers know this and will try to access these addresses nonstop so they can brute force their way through them. Therefore, one of the simplest ways to avoid the majority of these attacks is to move the WordPress admin and login pages to another location. In this manner, any attack on them runs into nothing. A plugin like WPS Hide Login makes this quite simple.
Also Read : How to take a screenshot on windows 10
2. Limit Login Attempts
📷image credit: wordpress.org
Another great way to stop these attacks in their tracks is to limit the times somebody can try to log in before they are blocked. WordPress has numerous plugins for that as well, such as Limit Login Attempts Reloaded.
3. Two-Factor Authentication
Two-factor authentication implies that in addition to entering their password, users will also have to enter a code generated by a mobile app or some other device to log in to your site. So, even if hackers manage to guess or somehow obtain your password, they still can’t get into your site without, for example, your phone. Use plugins like  Google Authenticator to set up two-factor authentication for your internet site
4. Hide wp-config.php and .htaccess files
While this is an innovative process for improving your site’s security, if you’re serious about your security it’s a decent practice to cover your site’s .htaccess and wp-config.php files to avoid hackers from accessing them. We strongly recommend this option to be applied by experienced developers, as it’s overbearing to first take a backup of your site and then proceed with caution. Any mistake might make your site inaccessible. To hide the files, after your backup, there are two things you need to do: First, head to your wp-config.php file and add the below code, <Files wp-config.php> order allow,deny deny from all </Files> In a similar manner, add the below code to your .htaccess file, <Files .htaccess> order allow,deny deny from all </Files> Although the method itself is very easy it’s essential to make sure that you have the backup before starting if in case anything goes wrong within the process.
Also Read : How to Install Windows 10 from USB Drive
Hope you enjoyed reading this article about How to Improve your WordPress Website Security. For any further queries or suggestions you can write down to us below or contact us here.
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stephenlibbyy · 4 years ago
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Century Link/Level 3 Outage is one of the biggest Internet Problem! 3.5% Drop in Global Internet Traffic
  On August 30, 2020, Level 3/Century Link, AS 3356 had major Internet outage. In fact this outage effected massive amount of networks, including very well know ones such as Amazon, Microsoft, Twitter, Discord, Reddit etc.
3.5% Global Internet Traffic was dropped due to this outage and entire network converged after almost 7 hours. This is huge amount of time. When we usually discuss convergence, specifically fast convergence, ‘Seconds’ if not ‘ Milliseconds ‘ are the target values.
No one wants to have minutes level network convergence. But when there is an Outage like this, we categorize them as ‘ Catastrophic Failures’ and unfortunately network design usually doesn’t take this kind of failures into an account.
But could it be prevented?
In the first place, let’s understand that, this event, similar to many other catastrophic network events, started at a single location. (According to a CenturyLink status page, the issue originated from CenturyLink’s data center in Mississauga, a city near Ontario, Canada.)
But it spread over entire backbone of AS3356.
In fact, I remember on 2014, which we famously know as 512k incident happened because of this network (Level 3) as well and that event also caused Global outages!.(Default Free Zone/ Global Routing Table was exceeded 512000 prefixes for IPv4 Unicast, Level 3 was announced 30k prefixes, and it was one of the defined Route Leaks in RFC 7908)
August 30, 2020 issue was not Route Leak though. It happened due to bad Flowspec (RFC 5575) rule.
In fact, Flowspec based outages happened many times in the past and CloudFlare Flowspec Based Outage was famous one.
Flowspec is an extension for the BGP that allows companies to use BGP routes to distribute firewall/policy rules across their network.
Flowspec announcements are usually used when dealing with security incidents, such as BGP hijacks or DDoS attacks, as it allows companies to change their entire network to react and mitigate attacks within seconds.
I usually explain it as the more flexible version of RTBH (Remotely Trigged Black Hole), though there are many differences between the two. Although Service Providers gives the customer to control their DDOS prevention with RTBH, they don’t like to give control via Flowspec.
Flowspec is for me no different than VTP or any other protocol, which the potential risks of it not greater than the benefits. So, you can bring the entire network down, relatively easily and tradeoff is operational simplicity.
Century Link/Level 3 took coordinated action with the other providers and they met in IRC to discuss the action, and other providers simply de-peered(disabled) their BGP session with the AS3356 until the problem is resolved. So, one more time we have seen how bad Flowspec rule would create AS (Autonomous System) wide outage easily, and when this AS is one of the Global Tier 1 company can effect millions of people again. Hope this time we take lesson, and take Routing Security seriously!
BGP Security, Interdomain Routing, BGP Traffic Engineering, Ingress and Egress Peer Engineering and many other details with BGP can be found in my BGP Zero to Her Course.
Cheers
Orhan Ergun
Century Link Outage!
The post Century Link/Level 3 Outage is one of the biggest Internet Problem! 3.5% Drop in Global Internet Traffic appeared first on orhanergun.net.
Century Link/Level 3 Outage is one of the biggest Internet Problem! 3.5% Drop in Global Internet Traffic published first on https://wdmsh.tumblr.com/
0 notes
stephenlibbyy · 4 years ago
Text
Century Link/Level 3 Outage is one of the biggest Internet Problem! 3.5% Drop in Global Internet Traffic
  On August 30, 2020, Level 3/Century Link, AS 3356 had major Internet outage. In fact this outage effected massive amount of networks, including very well know ones such as Amazon, Microsoft, Twitter, Discord, Reddit etc.
3.5% Global Internet Traffic was dropped due to this outage and entire network converged after almost 7 hours. This is huge amount of time. When we usually discuss convergence, specifically fast convergence, ‘Seconds’ if not ‘ Milliseconds ‘ are the target values.
No one wants to have minutes level network convergence. But when there is an Outage like this, we categorize them as ‘ Catastrophic Failures’ and unfortunately network design usually doesn’t take this kind of failures into an account.
But could it be prevented?
In the first place, let’s understand that, this event, similar to many other catastrophic network events, started at a single location. (According to a CenturyLink status page, the issue originated from CenturyLink’s data center in Mississauga, a city near Ontario, Canada.)
But it spread over entire backbone of AS3356.
In fact, I remember on 2014, which we famously know as 512k incident happened because of this network (Level 3) as well and that event also caused Global outages!.(Default Free Zone/ Global Routing Table was exceeded 512000 prefixes for IPv4 Unicast, Level 3 was announced 30k prefixes, and it was one of the defined Route Leaks in RFC 7908)
August 30, 2020 issue was not Route Leak though. It happened due to bad Flowspec (RFC 5575) rule.
In fact, Flowspec based outages happened many times in the past and CloudFlare Flowspec Based Outage was famous one.
Flowspec is an extension for the BGP that allows companies to use BGP routes to distribute firewall/policy rules across their network.
Flowspec announcements are usually used when dealing with security incidents, such as BGP hijacks or DDoS attacks, as it allows companies to change their entire network to react and mitigate attacks within seconds.
I usually explain it as the more flexible version of RTBH (Remotely Trigged Black Hole), though there are many differences between the two. Although Service Providers gives the customer to control their DDOS prevention with RTBH, they don’t like to give control via Flowspec.
Flowspec is for me no different than VTP or any other protocol, which the potential risks of it not greater than the benefits. So, you can bring the entire network down, relatively easily and tradeoff is operational simplicity.
Century Link/Level 3 took coordinated action with the other providers and they met in IRC to discuss the action, and other providers simply de-peered(disabled) their BGP session with the AS3356 until the problem is resolved. So, one more time we have seen how bad Flowspec rule would create AS (Autonomous System) wide outage easily, and when this AS is one of the Global Tier 1 company can effect millions of people again. Hope this time we take lesson, and take Routing Security seriously!
BGP Security, Interdomain Routing, BGP Traffic Engineering, Ingress and Egress Peer Engineering and many other details with BGP can be found in my BGP Zero to Her Course.
Cheers
Orhan Ergun
Century Link Outage!
The post Century Link/Level 3 Outage is one of the biggest Internet Problem! 3.5% Drop in Global Internet Traffic appeared first on orhanergun.net.
Century Link/Level 3 Outage is one of the biggest Internet Problem! 3.5% Drop in Global Internet Traffic published first on https://wdmsh.tumblr.com/
0 notes
stephenlibbyy · 4 years ago
Text
Century Link/Level 3 Outage is one of the biggest Internet Problem! 3.5% Drop in Global Internet Traffic
  On August 30, 2020, Level 3/Century Link, AS 3356 had major Internet outage. In fact this outage effected massive amount of networks, including very well know ones such as Amazon, Microsoft, Twitter, Discord, Reddit etc.
3.5% Global Internet Traffic was dropped due to this outage and entire network converged after almost 7 hours. This is huge amount of time. When we usually discuss convergence, specifically fast convergence, ‘Seconds’ if not ‘ Milliseconds ‘ are the target values.
No one wants to have minutes level network convergence. But when there is an Outage like this, we categorize them as ‘ Catastrophic Failures’ and unfortunately network design usually doesn’t take this kind of failures into an account.
But could it be prevented?
In the first place, let’s understand that, this event, similar to many other catastrophic network events, started at a single location. (According to a CenturyLink status page, the issue originated from CenturyLink’s data center in Mississauga, a city near Ontario, Canada.)
But it spread over entire backbone of AS3356.
In fact, I remember on 2014, which we famously know as 512k incident happened because of this network (Level 3) as well and that event also caused Global outages!.(Default Free Zone/ Global Routing Table was exceeded 512000 prefixes for IPv4 Unicast, Level 3 was announced 30k prefixes, and it was one of the defined Route Leaks in RFC 7908)
August 30, 2020 issue was not Route Leak though. It happened due to bad Flowspec (RFC 5575) rule.
In fact, Flowspec based outages happened many times in the past and CloudFlare Flowspec Based Outage was famous one.
Flowspec is an extension for the BGP that allows companies to use BGP routes to distribute firewall/policy rules across their network.
Flowspec announcements are usually used when dealing with security incidents, such as BGP hijacks or DDoS attacks, as it allows companies to change their entire network to react and mitigate attacks within seconds.
I usually explain it as the more flexible version of RTBH (Remotely Trigged Black Hole), though there are many differences between the two. Although Service Providers gives the customer to control their DDOS prevention with RTBH, they don’t like to give control via Flowspec.
Flowspec is for me no different than VTP or any other protocol, which the potential risks of it not greater than the benefits. So, you can bring the entire network down, relatively easily and tradeoff is operational simplicity.
Century Link/Level 3 took coordinated action with the other providers and they met in IRC to discuss the action, and other providers simply de-peered(disabled) their BGP session with the AS3356 until the problem is resolved. So, one more time we have seen how bad Flowspec rule would create AS (Autonomous System) wide outage easily, and when this AS is one of the Global Tier 1 company can effect millions of people again. Hope this time we take lesson, and take Routing Security seriously!
Century Link Outage!
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