Discovery Discussion of Security.

[Skyelius]

I came up with a few thoughts listening to comments about the aggresive attacks our servers are suffering, and perhaps everyone's grain of salt here can help make a change for the best.

First off in the discussion should be network security for our server. I went to visit a few friends of mine and I saw that the Procyon server uses a special feature (correct me if I'm wrong), "-proc.no-ip.org" in the shortcut connection tab, which I believe randomizes or rotates the server's IP. If this is indeed possible, then I believe it's a start.

As to hardware stuff, I really don't know much beyond a computer's basic functionality, so your ideas are very much welcome. Remember to treat everyone who posts here with respect, and post your opinion if you believe it can contribute to anything.

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"It is a cold universe until you know God as your Father, and then it becomes a home. Even the next life simply becomes the Father's house, home."
—David Pawson

[Alex.]

First off in the discussion should be network security for our server. I went to visit a few friends of mine and I saw that the Procyon server uses a special feature (correct me if I'm wrong), "-proc.no-ip.org" in the shortcut connection tab, which I believe randomizes or rotates the server's IP. If this is indeed possible, then I believe it's a start.

Third party... Can we trust it?

[TheMillers]

I came up with a few thoughts listening to comments about the aggresive attacks our servers are suffering, and perhaps everyone's grain of salt here can help make a change for the best.

First off in the discussion should be network security for our server. I went to visit a few friends of mine and I saw that the Procyon server uses a special feature (correct me if I'm wrong), "-proc.no-ip.org" in the shortcut connection tab, which I believe randomizes or rotates the server's IP. If this is indeed possible, then I believe it's a start.

Won't help in this case. Remember, the attack is not directed towards the actual machine, but the transport mechanism. So if such a system was used, the attack would just be directed towards the proc.no-ip.org site, and swamp that sites pipes, resulting in nobody being able to connect to that site to get the IP of the server.

Analogy time : Instead of targetting a specific car driving on the road, target the road itself making it congested, traffic slows down or is stopped, resulting in the real car can not reach its destination.
Thats what a DDoS attack does in effect. With the analogy in mind, a DDoS attack puts "so many cars on the road, so traffic stalls or completely stops, thereby denying service to the drivers of the real cars."

The only effective means of defence against a DDoS attack is, again with the analogy in mind, divert the non real cars into a scrapyard, at the entry point of the road - I.E. nullrouting aka blackholeling the non-valid traffic at routers upstream, untill the machines used to generate and transmit that traffic effectively is cordoned off from the routing used to reach the targetted IP.
Given the nature of the Internet, that can involve many ISP's and lots of routers.

EDIT: Just checked no-ip.org. Its not a defence mechanism against anything. Its just a dynamic DNS provider just like Dyndns.com. All it does is make it easier for users that have dynamic IP adresses, to provide a more permanent link to their machine. I.E: When their IP address changes, the proc.no-ip.org URL just resolves to the new address. Getting the IP address would just involve a ping, a DNS lookup, or a traceroute.

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Out of bats, Out of bots, Out of torps - Down to harsh language...

[Fletcher]

None, every security has a flaw. The server is fine, and a DDoS is VERY hard to avoid due to the logistics involved in defending against it.

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Alex.]

Fletcher, your saying there IS a way to defend against it?

[Fletcher]

Fletcher, your saying there IS a way to defend against it?

Yes, track the attacker first and hit them. That is the only thing I can think of. My class didn't really focus on a defence against a DDoS much, so I assume there isn't a solid one out there.

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Alex.]

Found some info...

Black-holing or sinkholing: This approach blocks all traffic and diverts it to a black hole, where it is discarded. The downside is that all traffic is discarded -- both good and bad -- and the targeted business is taken off-line. Similarly, packet-filtering and rate-limiting measures simply shut everything down, denying access to legitimate users.

Routers and firewalls: Routers can be configured to stop simple ping attacks by filtering nonessential protocols and can also stop invalid IP addresses. However, routers are typically ineffective against a more sophisticated spoofed attack and application-level attacks using valid IP addresses. Firewalls can shut down a specific flow associated with an attack, but like routers, they can't perform antispoofing.

Intrusion-detection systems: IDS solutions will provide some anomaly-detection capabilities so they will recognize when valid protocols are being used as an attack vehicle. They can be used in conjunction with firewalls to automatically block traffic. On the downside, they're not automated, so they need manual tuning by security experts, and they often generate false positives.

Servers: Proper configuration of server applications is critical in minimizing the effect of a DDoS attack. An administrator can explicitly define what resources an application can use and how it will respond to requests from clients. Combined with a DDoS mitigation appliance, optimized servers stand a chance of continued operations through a DDoS attack.

DDoS mitigation appliances: Several companies either make devices dedicated to sanitizing traffic or build DDoS mitigation functionality into devices used primarily for other functions such as load balancing or firewalling. These devices have varying levels of effectiveness. None is perfect. Some legitimate traffic will be dropped, and some illegitimate traffic will get to the server. The server infrastructure will have to be robust enough to handle this traffic and continue to serve legitimate clients.

Over-provisioning: or buying excess bandwidth or redundant network devices to handle spikes in demand can be an effective approach to handling DDoS attacks. One advantage of using an outsourced service provider is that you can buy services on demand, such as burstable circuits that give you more bandwidth when you need it, rather than making an expensive capital investment in redundant network interfaces and devices.
For the most part, companies don't know in advance that a DDoS attack is coming. The nature of an attack will often change midstream, requiring the company to react quickly and continuously over several hours or days. Since the primary effect of most attacks is to consume your Internet bandwidth, a well-equipped managed hosting provider has both the bandwidth and appliances to mitigate the effects of an attack.

Conclusion
DDoS attacks are destructive stealth weapons that can shutter a business. Our reliance on the Internet continues to grow, and the threat of DDoS attacks continues to expand. Organizations need to ensure operational continuity and resource availability with a vigilant DDoS mitigation approach if they want to conduct "business as usual."
Paul Froutan is vice president of engineering at Rackspace Managed Hosting, a provider of managed hosting services in San Antonio. An expert in traffic analysis and server scalability, he also holds a U.S. patent for his IDS, part of Rackspace's PrevenTier three-tier security system designed to help identify and mitigate the effects of DDoS attacks.

[Fletcher]

Black holing is a no-no unless your desperate. As it says, it drops both good and bad traffic.

I'm sure we already have an intrusion detection system, we do in-game to a point, but I'm not the host here.

I am more than certain that Majkp has the server set properly.

Over provisioning I believe is an ISP thing, the server's ISP wasn't prepared if I read right, so thats not our fault. But that kind of hosting anywhere is expensive. You'd need donations constantly to keep that up.

As in the conclusion, business servers survive better in average compared to people hosting their own servers for free.

Discovery will never, ever be immune. Why? Its a game server run by a community, not a subscriber base like say Runescape or WoW.

We either pay, or live with the cancer.

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Caelum]

The only effective means of defence against a DDoS attack is, again with the analogy in mind, divert the non real cars into a scrapyard, at the entry point of the road - I.E. nullrouting aka blackholeling the non-valid traffic at routers upstream, untill the machines used to generate and transmit that traffic effectively is cordoned off from the routing used to reach the targetted IP.
Given the nature of the Internet, that can involve many ISP's and lots of routers.

^What he said. That's not happening methinks; blame Zelot.

There's no way to protect against a (D)DoS, especially with a game server, other than having a good host.
Nothing more than that can be done (easily) or needs to be done to the gameserver, really. For as far as I can see, anyway.

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[Fletcher]

I still stand by that sadly, DDoS is very very hard to defend against as a non-corporate server.

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread