The Noose Tightens: The Dangers of a New Vulnerability for Conducting DDoS Attacks

Experts from the German CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security have discovered a new type of Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack that poses a threat to 300,000 systems worldwide. The attack, named Loop DoS, involves creating an infinite loop of requests between two applications that are vulnerable to a flaw in one of the key internet protocols, UDP (User Datagram Protocol). Although the principle behind this vulnerability was exploited by attackers as far back as the 1990s, experts consider the current situation to be serious. Previously, exploiting such a vulnerability was deemed quite marginal, occurring only in old and rarely used protocols. However, analysts now say that the risk landscape has significantly expanded.

August 7, 2024