DDoS Attack Used 'Headless' Browsers In 150-Hour Siege

MalwareVirus

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Oct 6, 2012
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"Headless" browsers pummeled a trading platform's website this past week in a rare form of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that lasted for 150 hours.

The attack employed some 180,000 IP addresses -- and as of today continues to rebound in smaller pockets -- according to cloud-based DDoS mitigation service provider Incapsula, which discovered and mitigated the massive attack for its customer.
DDoS attacks increasingly have moved up the stack to the application layer, mainly for more targeted purposes, such as disrupting transactions or access to databases.

The attack also was unusual in that it employed a version of the Phantom JS headless browser toolkit, which is a Web app developer's tool for testing and simulating user browsing of an application. "This was the first time we saw this technology in a DDoS attack," Gaffan says. "It mimics human behavior so effectively that it's a challenge for mitigation services to deal with."

Phantom JS is basically a test tool that uses a bare-bones or "headless" browser -- no buttons, address bar, etc. -- with an API so programmers can test-run and automate their apps. "They can do a load test to websites simulating browser behavior and run JavaScript and accept cookies," for example, Gaffan says.

The victim organization's business in the end suffered little impact since Incapsula was able to mitigate the attack, he says. But the DDoS hasn't disappeared yet, either: "It started last week, and to some extent, it's still ongoing," Gaffan says. "There's an ongoing process [by the attackers] of updating and changing" the headless browsers in the attack, he says.

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