Internet sites associated with
Germany (.de and .com), as well as other German speaking countries such
as Austria (.at) and Switzerland (.ch), are suffering a dramatic increase in online attacks in May.
A total of 556 .de sites were defaced in 2001, but the figure for 2002 is already much higher at 995, with 263 of these taking place so far in May, according to the mi2g Intelligence Unit.
Sites defaced include hotels, retail businesses, universities and Internet Service Providers.
The majority of the attacks are due to a single hacker group that became active on 23rd March 2002.
Since then, it has been responsible for 64%
(484/752) of .de defacements, 72% (108/150) of .at defacements and 54% (85/158) of .ch defacements, with the rest being carried out by various smaller groups and individuals.
Of the German systems defaced in 2002, 75% are running on Linux. These
Linux based sites deploy open source third party portal and forum applications.
The hacker group responsible for the recent attacks on
German websites is exclusively targeting Linux based sites, exploiting
some of the known open source application vulnerabilities.
"So far, the security balance appeared to be tilting against proprietary applications but the recent wave of German attacks has shown that
vulnerabilities within open source applications can be just as easily exploited," says DK Matai, Chairman and CEO, mi2g.
According to the mi2g Intelligence Unit, the updated figure of .com defacements worldwide in 2001 was 9,022, while in 2002 the number so far is 3,559.
The overall figure for website defacements in 2001 was
31,291, while in 2002 the number so far is 12,116.
An interesting feature of the recent attacks on the .de domain is that some waves have been associated with single IP addresses, indicating
that some of the targeted groups of sites have been running on the same
machine.
Growth in the deployment of virtual hosting systems, where a single machine hosts many websites, is fast becoming a substantial source of digital risk.

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