OpenDNS Research: Top 5 Cyber Attacks of 2013

Cloud-delivered Internet security services specialist OpenDNS released the findings of a report today on the top five cyber attacks of 2013.

The company’s research organization, OpenDNS Security Labs, took a look at malicious Internet events over the past 12 months to generate the report.

OpenDNS Security Labs listed the following events as the top five cyber attacks of 2013:

Red October
An advanced cyber-espionage was responsible for targeting select enterprises. Malware was used to “phone home” to command and control servers and exfiltrate data.

Kelihos
Complex criminal infrastructure, used to deliver the malware and steal data, continues to adapt and evade reputation systems and sandboxes with double fast fluxing networks and domain generation algorithms.

Syrian Electronic Army DNS Hijack
Visitors to some of the Internet’s most popular websites were redirected to the Syrian Electronic Army’s Web server, delivering a political message.

Syria Internet Shutdown
Internet access into and out of the country was completely cut off by withdrawing the network routes that are used to reach the Syria-based .SY domain name servers.

Cryptolocker
The most sophisticated and widespread ransomware ever seen evaded firewalls, gateways and endpoint protections for weeks using a domain generation algorithm (DGA). Infected machines “phoned home” to acquire keys used to encrypt the victim’s files.

“Organizations and their security practitioners can no longer simply rely on traditional signature and perimeter-based defenses,” OpenDNS CTO Dan Hubbard said in a prepared statement. “Security has to move at Internet speed.”

OpenDNS rolled out its Umbrella for MSPs service integration for ConnectWise back in November to provide MSPs with a place to centrally manage and deliver Umbrella web filtering and security services.