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The hulking figure dominating the corner of the crowded tavern was given a wide berth by the other patrons. Even though the smoky room was packed with people, the table occupied by the massive man had plenty of space around it. Several customers made obvious attempts not to trespass over the imaginary border circling the man, spilling their steins of beer in clumsy efforts not to stray too close. The man was enveloped in a rough leather cloak with fur edges that covered his heavy, muscular frame. Atop his head was an enormous iron helmet ringed with fur. He made no effort to conceal the plethora of weapons affixed to his body – a curved katana on his hip, a slim dagger fastened to each colossal boot, a string of throwing knives on a bandolier around his mammoth chest. A giant broadsword leaned against the table inches from his left hand. He chugged the local ale from a large mug – dwarfed by his thick gnarled fist – and noisily thumped it down on the wooden table. He belched deeply, shifted in his chair and glared through narrowed eyes at the boisterous crowd milling around the room. The door of the tavern opened silently and the cold arctic air washed over the crowd. Normally the unruly band of thugs, thieves and degenerates that frequented this back woods out-of-the-way watering hole would lament and howl at the intruder unleashing the frigid draft. Several turned to begin vilifying the guilty party but stopped when a figure emerged from the shadows. The recent arrival flung off his black cloak revealing an impeccable wardrobe of silk, satin and expensive wool – a resplendent assembly in red and black. Dressed in this immaculate suit of clothes, the newly arrived character cut a dramatic contrast to the other grimy patrons. His coif of coal black hair was slicked back revealing a high forehead. His lips, red against his pale skin, pursed in disgust as he looked down his long thin nose at the crowd. His piercing grey eyes moved slowly across the menagerie – daring anyone to open their mouth. Those that had turned to snarl at the interloper quickly turned back to their drinks. The previous raucous cacophony of arguments, taunts and cajoling hushed to soft whispers and muted tones. The man nodded and then strode across the room with purpose, stopping in front of the goliath in the corner. “Greetings.” The elegant man bowed slightly. He slid a chair from an adjacent table – empty as part of the de-militarized zone around the dangerous resident of the corner stall – and seated himself across from the Brute. “What do you want, Maestro?” The Brute snorted. “I haven’t time for your mischief and schemes.” “I have a job for you.” The Maestro stated while slipping off his satin white gloves. “This one should be right up your alley.” The Maestro slid a large bag from his cloak and dropped it on the table. The unmistakable clang of gold coins – many gold coins – caught the ear of the Brute. The Maestro twirled his long thin mustache between his delicate fingers and a sinister grin spread wide on his face. The Brute smiled revealing teeth encrusted with gold caps – some fashioned into points a bit too sharp for merely eating one’s meals – and rubbed the coarse beard that hid most of his face. A deep scar above his right eye gleamed white against his weathered skin. “Bar keep!” The Brute roared, shocking the room into a deathly silence. “A round for me and my friend. We have business to discuss.” ***** Marty felt helpless looking over the shoulders of the network team frantically tapping out commands on their keyboards. The Network Operations Center was abuzz with activity dealing with the massive denial of service attack. Techs clicked and clacked on keyboards and hands swirled mice switching from monitor to monitor. Command windows and consoles from various tools popped up and down on screens like fireworks. Marty paced to the back of the room and leaned up against a table holding the remnants of four demolished pizzas. He flinched when Greg appeared noiselessly at this side. “Any update?” Greg asked nervously. “Well, so far the load balancing is working. The web servers went down hard but they got them back up without too much damage. The traffic amounts are amazing. I don’t know who is coordinating this attack but they have some considerable resources.” “Do we have a bead on sources? Where is it all coming from?” Marty shrugged. “It’s coming from multiple ISPs. The first wave of Syn floods hit about four hours ago. They caught it fairly quickly but it seems like as soon as they get it under control something else happens. We’ve briefed all of our upstream providers and they are helping out. I don’t think they have seen this level of traffic before. Even our table top exercises weren’t based on this much traffic. Not only are they hitting our primary pipes but our secondary providers as well. It seems that http and https packets are now the main issue. We are still seeing the SYN floods – they just keep piling on.” Carl patted one of the network engineers on the back and walked over to the table eyeing the veggie pizza that had survived the initial deluge of network engineers. Free food – a staple during emergencies like this – was a popular motive for pitching in and helping. Carl took a sizable chunk out of a piece of pizza. “The bastards are now going after the DNS servers too. This is just nuts. We’ve gotten denial of service attacks before but this takes the cake…er, pizza.” “Hi, Carl. How’s it going?” Greg interjected, moving towards the older man. Carl scrutinized the security admin and gave Marty the “he better not encroach on my personal space DMZ” look. “Sup, Greg.” Greg beamed and took another step. Carl stopped chewing his pizza and raised his hand to ward off further conversation. Luckily, the confrontation was interrupted by expletives spewing from the network crew. The lead network engineer exclaimed. “Our search servers just went offline.” Marty leapt over to the console and frantically typed in a command window. “Greg, get the application team on the phone. We got a bigger problem. Looks like they are hitting the application layer now. Malformed searches, brute forcing logins, the works. We need some more help getting this under control.” Come back on Tuesday for the next episode! The post E3 – Hordes at the Gate – The Siege appeared first on Speaking of Security - The RSA Blog and Podcast. |
