Category: Security Research

Visualizing 2014 Attack Data

Leveraging the data and threat intelligence derived from our massively distributed and global DNS infrastructure, OpenDNS saw more than 2% of the world’s Internet connections, blocked more than 80,000,000 malicious requests per day, and ensured quick and reliable DNS resolution for more than 50 million active users daily in 196 countries.

As a result we at OpenDNS Security Labs had a unique view of the year’s prominent security events. As we prepared last year we decided to release a stunning Visualizing Attack Data microsite covering 8 of the most prominent security happenings in 2014. Though this is not a complete list of every security-related event in 2014, we believe it to represent a great sampling of some of the most publicized and prominent events that affected the Internet at large.

All of the visualizations were constructed with OpenGraphiti, our free and open source 3D data visualization engine for data scientists to visualize semantic networks, and OpenDNS data. More information on how to use OpenGraphiti can be found at http://www.opengraphiti.com.

Without further adieu, we present to you the 2014 Visualizing Attack Data site…

Visualizing Attack Data

 

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Internet of Things (IoT) meets the Internet of Holidays (IoH)

As the OpenDNS Security Labs team took some much needed time off, we found ourselves wondering what “toys” would be connected to the Internet throughout the holiday season, and what traffic patterns would emerge as a result. This blog post will detail some of our findings through the lens of the Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices, home automation products, toys, and wearable devices.

Belkin International, Inc., an American manufacturer of consumer electronics that specializes in connectivity devices, had a relatively flat showing throughout the holiday season. The only item of note was an uptick on Monday, December 15th at 04:00 UTC. We cannot directly correlate this anomaly with any recent events so this will likely remain a mystery.
heartbeat.belkin.com
Competitor D-Link Corporation (Chinese: 友訊科技), a Taiwanese multinational networking equipment manufacturing corporation headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, saw a similar pattern in traffic destined to signal[.]mydlink[.]com
signal.mydlink.com
If we look at signal[.]eu[.]mydlink[.]com, however, we notice a surge on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day (spanning multiple timezones). Again, another curious spike on December 9 that cannot be correlated to anything of consequence.
signal.eu.mydlink.com
One of the most noticeable spikes after Christmas was related to the Phillips Hue lighting devices. We saw peaks of more than 1,800 queries per interval which is likely associated with the installation and configuration of the lights. With the recent announcement of the 12 Monkeys television series synchronizing with Hue home lighting to match the onscreen action, we find ourselves wondering what this traffic will look like in the coming weeks.
my.meethue.com
Google-owned Nest saw very little increase during the holidays, perhaps due to the complexity required to install the devices – compared to that of a simple lightbulb. We find ourselves wondering if this will spike in the new  year and if spikes will be seen predominantly on non-workdays.
nest.com
Arrayent, Inc., a software company that has developed the Arrayent Connect Platform, experienced a sizable spike in traffic to its primary domain arrayent[.]com. The largest spikes we saw, however, were before the holidays even started – perhaps people purchasing new appliances before their guests arrived?
arrayent.com
You may not have heard of Arrayent before but you’ve probably heard of some of the brands they partner with.
arrayent-brands-slider
We looked at some of these brands including Whirlpool (whirlpool-sw1[.]arrayent[.]com).
whirlpool-sw1.arrayent.com
and Chamberlain (chamb-api[.]arrayent[.]com), a manufacturer of garage door openers and associated equipment.
chamb-api.arrayent.com
So what caused the Arrayent spike? We’re still investigating.

August[.]com, makers of the August Smart Lock, saw a significant increase leading up to and continuing through the holidays. We saw peaks as high as 3,537 queries per interval during our analysis timeframe.
august.com
The most interesting spikes, and perhaps the most concerning if you are a parent of a small child, was that of traffic associated with educational entertainment company Leapfrog. The company homepage – leapfrog[.]com – saw a significant post-Christmas surge to more than ~31,000 queries per interval. At first glance, we thought this might be related to parents’ searching for instructions on how to configure the devices for their kids, registration of the devices, and even application downloads.
leapfrog.com
Looking at some of the co-occurring domains we noticed the lfcam[.]leapfrog[.]com domain had an abnormal spike as well. One can only assume that this is in some way related to a LeapFrog camera (hence ‘lfcam’) either registering or, even more alarming, uploading pictures taken by users of the devices.
lfcam.leapfrog.com
The devicelog[.]leapfrog[.]com domain also sees a significant increase that likely correlates with newly purchased devices. Are these diagnostic messages being sent up to the LeapFrog cloud or are they usage statistics for actions taken on the devices?
devicelog.leapfrog.com
Perhaps the most depressing, yet predictable, traffic pattern observed was that of the FitBit wireless-enabled wearable devices and activity trackers. With the start of Hanukkah (on December 18) and throughout Christmas we noticed a steady decline in callbacks to api[.]fitbit[.]com. The low point, Thursday, Dec 25 at 22:00 UTC, dropped to 429 queries per interval – or as it shall henceforth be known, “The Turkey Coma Canyon”.
api.fitbit.com
We hope you enjoyed this blog post. Now throw on your activity tracker, install that connected garage door opener, install your thermostat, and hook up your new washer and dryer!

The post Internet of Things (IoT) meets the Internet of Holidays (IoH) appeared first on OpenDNS Security Labs.

OpenDNS to Host the No Big Thing (NBT) Conference

logoWith BayThreat 2014 being cancelled, OpenDNS has offered to host the first day of the two day No Big Thing (NBT) conference. In a short time, the organizers of the event have had an amazing group of speakers, sponsors, and volunteers help organize a great hacker conference.

The event is currently at capacity but there is a waitlist that anyone can add themselves to.

The event includes two days of advanced information security presentations, food, drinks, and a hallway track for socializing. Starting Friday, December 5th at 2:00pm PST, OpenDNS opens its doors to kick off the conference at 135 Bluxome Street.

Schedule:

Friday, December 5th at OpenDNS (135 Bluxome St, San Francisco, CA 94107)

TimeSpeakerTopic
2:30-3:30Richo Healy“Audible networking with Groundstation”
3:30-4:30MainBoard“point bREak : trolling BBS applications and users back in the 90s”
4:30-5:00Jason Craig“SIGINT isn’t just for the government anymore”
5:00-6:00Speaker TBATopic TBA
6:00-6:30Provided dinner break
6:30-7:00Ping Yan“Applied statistics and machine learning techniques on in-app events”
7:00-8:00Alex Pinto“From Threat Intelligence to Defense Cleverness: A Data Science Approach”
8:00-10:00Provided tacos and cerveses
10:00-?Hosted party at bar TBA

 

Saturday, December 6th, the conference is being hosted at the Salesforce office (121 Spear St, San Francisco, CA 94105) starting at 10:00am.

TimeSpeakerTopic
10:00-11:00Kymberlee Price“More Libraries! More Vulnerabilities! More Things!”
11:00-12:00Morgan Marquis-Boire“Eve, Mallory, and Jack Bauer: Real threats for RealPeople”
12:00-12:30Ben Sadegh“How bug bounty hunters do and don’t”
12:30-1:00Provided lunch
1:00-2:00Wartortell“The trials and tribulations of an APTmalware author”
2:00-3:00John Menerick“Breaking or Protecting the Internet’s BuildingBlocks”
3:00-4:00TBA + break
4:00-5:00Dan Hranj and Josh Schwartz“Red vs Blue”
5:00-6:00Evan Booth“MacGyveresque creative problem solving”
6:00-8:00Provided dinner and drinks
8:00-10:00Hosted party at bar TBA
10:00-?Cash Bar Crawl (check Twitter for location updates)

 

Each evening will have a hosted happy hour and dinner with an afterparty at a local bar. We hope to see you there!

Check out our the official Twitter account for the latest announcements: @nbtcon.

For directions to OpenDNS, please use the following map for a point of reference:

Screenshot 2014-12-01 10.01.31

The post OpenDNS to Host the No Big Thing (NBT) Conference appeared first on OpenDNS Security Labs.

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