Hackers develop DDoS tool, target Obamacare site
Posted by: Jon Ben-Mayor on 11/08/2013 08:36 AM
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A tool is being offered by unnamed hackers, that claims the ability to disable the Healthcare.gov website with a DDoS attack; the tool, that has the catchy title of "Destroy Obama Care!" is being offered for download on various social networks and claims that it is a form of civil disobedience.
InformationWeek quotes Marc Eisenbarth, research manager at DDoS defense firm Arbor Networks, "This program continually displays alternate page of the ObamaCare website. It has no virus, Trojans, worms, or cookies. The purpose is to overload the ObamaCare website, to deny serivce [sic] to users and perhaps overload and crash the system," reads the program's grammar- and spelling-challenged "about" screen. "You can open as many copies of this program as you want. Each copy opens multiple links to the site."
"ObamaCare is an affront to the Constitutional rights of the people," it adds. "We HAVE the right to CIVIL disobedience!"
This is hardly the first DDoS attack tool designed to right perceived political wrongs, according to Eisenbarth. "This application continues a trend [Arbor] is seeing with denial-of-service attacks being used as a means of retaliation against a policy, legal rulings or government actions."
In this case, the anti-Obamacare DDoS tool, which is written in Delphi, is designed to launch numerous layer seven -- application-layer -- requests to the Affordable Care Act website (www.healthcare.gov) as well as the site's contact page (www.healthcare.gov/contact-us). The intent is to overwhelm the sites with traffic, making them inaccessible to would-be insurance buyers.
Could this attack application be the nail in the coffin for the Healthcare.gov insurance exchange website, which has faced a rocky launch since its Oct. 1 rollout? The fallout from the botched launch has already lead to the CIO of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services deciding to defect to the "private sector" for an undisclosed position, and President Obama continually promising that the site's kinks will soon be worked out.
Eisenbarth said this DDoS tool most likely can't deliver what it promises. "The request rate, the non-distributed attack architecture and many other limitations make this tool unlikely to succeed in affecting the availability of the healthcare.gov site," he said. Furthermore, he noted that to date, Arbor has seen no "active use of this software."
What of the "Destroy Obama Care!" tool's premise that it allows users to exercise their right to civil disobedience? On this front, the tool's author has read his or her U.S. legal code incorrectly. Indeed, U.S. law enforcement agencies have vigorously prosecuted people who launch DDoS attacks against any website.
InformationWeek quotes Marc Eisenbarth, research manager at DDoS defense firm Arbor Networks, "This program continually displays alternate page of the ObamaCare website. It has no virus, Trojans, worms, or cookies. The purpose is to overload the ObamaCare website, to deny serivce [sic] to users and perhaps overload and crash the system," reads the program's grammar- and spelling-challenged "about" screen. "You can open as many copies of this program as you want. Each copy opens multiple links to the site.""ObamaCare is an affront to the Constitutional rights of the people," it adds. "We HAVE the right to CIVIL disobedience!"
This is hardly the first DDoS attack tool designed to right perceived political wrongs, according to Eisenbarth. "This application continues a trend [Arbor] is seeing with denial-of-service attacks being used as a means of retaliation against a policy, legal rulings or government actions."
In this case, the anti-Obamacare DDoS tool, which is written in Delphi, is designed to launch numerous layer seven -- application-layer -- requests to the Affordable Care Act website (www.healthcare.gov) as well as the site's contact page (www.healthcare.gov/contact-us). The intent is to overwhelm the sites with traffic, making them inaccessible to would-be insurance buyers.
Could this attack application be the nail in the coffin for the Healthcare.gov insurance exchange website, which has faced a rocky launch since its Oct. 1 rollout? The fallout from the botched launch has already lead to the CIO of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services deciding to defect to the "private sector" for an undisclosed position, and President Obama continually promising that the site's kinks will soon be worked out.
Eisenbarth said this DDoS tool most likely can't deliver what it promises. "The request rate, the non-distributed attack architecture and many other limitations make this tool unlikely to succeed in affecting the availability of the healthcare.gov site," he said. Furthermore, he noted that to date, Arbor has seen no "active use of this software."
What of the "Destroy Obama Care!" tool's premise that it allows users to exercise their right to civil disobedience? On this front, the tool's author has read his or her U.S. legal code incorrectly. Indeed, U.S. law enforcement agencies have vigorously prosecuted people who launch DDoS attacks against any website.
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