Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Mains level: Cyber attacks;
Why in the News?
In January, the Kaveri 2.0 web portal, which helps with property registrations in Karnataka, experienced frequent server crashes. This caused a major disruption, bringing property registration and related citizen services to a near halt in the state.
What is a DDoS attack?
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What are other major DDoS attacks?
- Dyn DDoS Attack (2016): The Dyn DDoS attack disrupted major websites including Twitter, Netflix, and Reddit. The attack used a botnet of IoT devices, such as cameras and routers, to flood Dyn’s servers with traffic, causing widespread outages.
- GitHub DDoS Attack (2018): In 2018, GitHub was hit by one of the largest DDoS attacks in history, with traffic peaking at 1.35 terabits per second. The attack exploited memcached servers to amplify the traffic, overwhelming GitHub’s servers before mitigation efforts kicked in.
- AWS DDoS Attack (2020): Amazon Web Services (AWS) faced a 2.3 Tbps DDoS attack in 2020, which was one of the largest publicly reported DDoS attacks. AWS mitigated the attack using its cloud infrastructure and security services like AWS Shield.
- Cloudflare DDoS Attack (2021): In 2021, Cloudflare thwarted a 26 million request-per-second DDoS attack, one of the largest HTTPS DDoS attacks at the time. It was mitigated using Cloudflare’s advanced rate-limiting and traffic filtering technologies.
- Microsoft Azure DDoS Attack (2023): Microsoft Azure faced one of the largest DDoS attacks ever recorded, peaking at 3.47 terabits per second. The attack, attributed to a botnet leveraging vulnerable devices, aimed to disrupt services for enterprise clients.
What are the steps taken by the Indian Government?
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How can such attacks be mitigated? (Way forward)
- Traffic Filtering & AI-Based Detection: Uses firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS), and AI-based threat analysis to filter out malicious traffic before it reaches the target server.
- Example: Google Cloud Armor helped mitigate a 46 million request-per-second (RPS) DDoS attack in 2022 by detecting abnormal traffic patterns and blocking it in real-time.
- Rate Limiting & Load Balancing: Restricts the number of requests a user can make in a given timeframe and distributes traffic across multiple servers to prevent overload.
- Example: Cloudflare’s Rate Limiting and Load Balancer mitigated an HTTP flood attack on a European banking institution, ensuring legitimate users were not affected.
- Bot Detection & CAPTCHAs: Uses CAPTCHA tests, behavioural analytics, and browser fingerprinting to block automated bot traffic.
- Example: GitHub (2015 DDoS Attack by China-based botnet) introduced CAPTCHA-based protection to prevent automated malicious requests targeting anti-censorship tools.
- CDN & Cloud-Based DDoS Protection: Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and cloud-based security providers absorb attack traffic before it reaches the main infrastructure.
- Example: Amazon AWS Shield protected against a 2.3 Tbps DDoS attack (2020) by leveraging global CDN distribution and real-time attack mitigation.
- Incident Response Plan & Collaboration with Cybersecurity Agencies: Organizations monitor threats, conduct regular security audits, and coordinate with government agencies for rapid response.
- Example: Kaveri 2.0 Attack (2024, Karnataka, India) led to a cybercrime investigation and strengthened security protocols after the portal faced 6.2 lakh malicious requests in two hours.
Mains PYQ:
Q Discuss the potential threats of Cyber attack and the security framework to prevent it.(UPSC IAS/2017)
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