New Type of DDoS Attack Targets Vulnerability in Universal Plug and Play Networking Protocol

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New Type of DDoS Attack Targets Vulnerability in Universal Plug and Play Networking Protocol

By CircleID Reporter
May 15, 2018, 3:08 pm PDT Views: 12,043 Add Comment

A new type of DDoS attack takes advantage of an old vulnerability with the potential to put any company with an online presence at risk of attack warn researchers. Danny Palmer reporting in ZDNet: “A newly-uncovered form of DDoS attack takes advantage of a well-known, yet still exploitable, security vulnerability in the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) networking protocol to allow attackers to bypass common methods for detecting their actions. Attacks are launched from irregular source ports, making it difficult to determine their origin and blacklist the ports in order to protect against future incidents.”

Researchers also add that “this and many other UPnP exploits can be very easily avoided just by blocking the devices from being remotely accessible—an option that, in most cases, only exists as an oversight, since it serves no useful function or has any benefit for device users.”

By CircleID Reporter

CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.

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