US security agency under cyber attack from botnet

The state of Utah has experienced a significant number of cyber attacks, largely due to the fact it is home to the National Security Agency (NSA) data centre. A new report suggests the NSA is facing up to 300m attacks daily, compared to an average of 25,000 to 80,000 per day in 2010; with the trend rising since former CIA contractor, Edward Snowden, revealed the data centre's Utah location. Alongside the NSA, advanced weapons systems at Hill Air Force Base and other technology companies may also be attracting malicious cyber activity. Security officers have identified the attackers as having foreign IP ranges and suggested that the large number of attacks reflects the use of a botnet.

Utah State computer systems are experiencing a massive cyber attack on up to 300 Million Hacking attempts per day due to National Security Agency's (NSA) data center in the state.





Yes, 300,000,000 hacking attempts in a day!





According to the statistical survey, it is evident that the computer systems in the US State of Utah began to experience the hacking attack a few years back, precisely, soon after the NSA revelations by global surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden.





It is a less-known fact that the NSA has built its new data center near the city of Bluffdale, Utah. However, a couple of years back, when Snowden revealed the presence of the data center, the attacks have constantly been going on.





The PRISM spying program by Big Brothers at NSA might have shifted the attention of hackers for the retaliation against mass-surveillance and flared up this heightened cyber attacks against the spying agency.





According to Utah Commissioner of public safety, Keith Squires, as quoted by KUTV

"In 2010, my IT director was letting me know that the number of attacks we were averaging a day was between 25,000 to 80,000. We had peaks in the past year or so that were over 300,000,000 a day."

Additionally, advanced weapons systems at Hill Air Force Base and other tech companies in Utah could also be the reason for this fueling cyber attacks.





Trace Route





The Security officers had identified the sudden influx of IP traffic traced into foreign IP ranges and said the incident would be a model of a botnet attack.





The botnet network scans for the technical glitches in the communication pathways to infect the system, as per its Command and Control (C&C) instructions.





In an attempt to minimize the attacking vector, Utah Security Officer had blocked the IP addresses from China, Russia, and Indonesia.

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In the majority of cases, hackers are trying to gain a single access by many tactical ploys that could lead them to land into the NSA mainframes.





The Big Brother is Watching you…!