amazon cloud | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Sun, 15 May 2011 19:04:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png amazon cloud | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Is Amazon Cloud a breeding ground for hack attacks? https://www.kitguru.net/channel/carl/is-amazon-cloud-a-breeding-ground-for-hack-attacks/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/carl/is-amazon-cloud-a-breeding-ground-for-hack-attacks/#respond Sun, 15 May 2011 19:01:30 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=45331 Earlier in the week, we reported that Sony were compromised by hackers renting servers from Amazon. This hacker used Amazon's Elastic Computer Cloud (EC2) service to attack Sony's online entertainment systems last month. The intruder set up a fake name to use the account, and managed to get away with it. Amazon have since disabled …

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Earlier in the week, we reported that Sony were compromised by hackers renting servers from Amazon. This hacker used Amazon's Elastic Computer Cloud (EC2) service to attack Sony's online entertainment systems last month. The intruder set up a fake name to use the account, and managed to get away with it. Amazon have since disabled the account. It asks an important question however, will Amazon change anything?

The incident is one of the biggest hacks in history, being the second largest online data breach in U.S. History. Jeff Bezos, Amazon's cloud computing service is inexpensive and very deadly in the wrong hands. The Sony breach is an indication of just how deadly, with over 100 million customer accounts potentially compromised.

Pete Malcolm, chief executive officer of Abiquo, Inc, a company based in California who specialise in helping customers manage data internally and through cloud computing said “Anyone can go get an Amazon account and use it anonymously. If they have computers in their back bedroom they are much easier to trace than if they are on Amazon’s Web Services.”

Sony have hired three security firms to investigate the breach and are working with law enforcement officials. Sony are still dealing with the aftermath of the incident and many customers have lost faith in the brand name and the online services they provide.

Amazon Servers: used to break Sony's network by an unknown 'customer'

Bloomberg has said that they feel the Federal Bureau of Investigation will more than likely subpoena Amazon to seek a search warrant to access the history of transactions and to trace who had access to the internet address at the time and get details on payment data. You can be sure that if this person is smart enough to hack into Sony's network that he (or she) has covered their tracks.

Amazon Web Services lease computing space to companies so they don't have to buy their own servers to store data or handle spikes in traffic.

Looking at Amazon's rates, EC2 services cost from 3 cents to $2.48 an hour for users in the East Coast of the U.S. When you sign up an email address, password, phone number, credit card and billing address information is required. When this is completed Amazon then send out an automated call and users have to verify with a four digit code to complete the registration.

Malcolm answered the question relating to security of the Amazon online services. “Realistically, Amazon can’t do anything to prevent it, There is no way of telling who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy.”

These web services are a good source of income for Amazon, as they generated around $500 million last year – translating to around 1.5 percent of their income.

Why use Cloud services for hacking? They are useful because the use of multiple servers can help with processing power to crack passwords. Much more than a single home machine could ever hope to generate. Hackers can also hide behind proxies across the world, giving out fake locations, making them hard, or almost impossible to track.

The bad news is that reports indicate that malicious attacks in the U.S. are on the increase. They make up 31 percent of data breaches in 2010, up from 24 percent a year before.

Sony have kept their statements simple and to the point. They said that last months attack was “very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber attack.” The end result of the attack has been very costly for Sony, with estimates ranging around $1 billion.

KitGuru says: How can Amazon stop this from happening again?

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Playstation hack came from Amazon EC2 https://www.kitguru.net/channel/carl/playstation-hack-came-from-amazon-ec2/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/carl/playstation-hack-came-from-amazon-ec2/#respond Sat, 14 May 2011 08:32:42 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=45079 Bloomberg news have reported that the hackers who breached the Sony Playstation Network security used Amazon's web services cloud to launch the attack. According to the story, the hacker(s) rented a server from Amazon's EC2 service and breached the network from there, mentioning an unnamed person with knowledge of the matter. The hackers obviously supplied …

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Bloomberg news have reported that the hackers who breached the Sony Playstation Network security used Amazon's web services cloud to launch the attack.

According to the story, the hacker(s) rented a server from Amazon's EC2 service and breached the network from there, mentioning an unnamed person with knowledge of the matter. The hackers obviously supplied fake information to Amazon. This account has subsequently been closed.

Amazon and Sony have yet to comment on these claims. Bloomberg have not detailed how Amazon's Cloud was used to handle the attack on Sony, but it would appear that Amazon's Cloud has been used before for similar activities.

Thomas Roth, a german security researcher highlighted that by tapping into the EC2 service, he could crack Wi-Fi passwords in a fraction of the time of using his own computing equipment. For a cost of around £1 he used special ‘Cluster GPU Instances' of the Amazon Cloud to carry out brute force cracks which allowed him to access a WPA-PSK protected network in about 20 minutes.

Another famous instance with the ZeuS banking trojan used similar methods, tapping into the Amazon service as a command and control channel which could issue updates and instructions to computers which were infected by the malware.

Sony have not yet commented saying “We’re continuing to work with law enforcement in an ongoing investigation into the situation. As such, we will not comment further on this matter.”

KitGuru says: Using the cloud to mount attacks. Its rather devious and just as clever.

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Amazon prepares plans for free tablet PC https://www.kitguru.net/channel/slyvia/amazon-prepares-plans-for-free-tablet-pc/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/slyvia/amazon-prepares-plans-for-free-tablet-pc/#respond Sat, 12 Mar 2011 17:03:56 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=37448 From nowhere, to absolute must have product, to ‘completely free' in the space of 18 months? Will that really be the fate of the tablet PC? Is mega-retailer Amazon, ready to do something Amazing?  KitGuru tries to read the after images on our Kindle. While Samsung, Motorola and others are pushing hard to lose a …

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From nowhere, to absolute must have product, to ‘completely free' in the space of 18 months? Will that really be the fate of the tablet PC? Is mega-retailer Amazon, ready to do something Amazing?  KitGuru tries to read the after images on our Kindle.

While Samsung, Motorola and others are pushing hard to lose a fortune in the high-end tablet PC market against Apple, it now looks like they might have even less to look forward to.

Initial eBooks did not create much interest. There was a severe disconnect between the reader and the material. Cue Amazon.

So much easier to hold with one hand, right? What if it was a Tablet PC - and free?

Sick of paying millions in warehouse storage, logistic and courier fees, the book giant focused its efforts on creating (arguably) the best eBook reader in the market with the Kindle.  Then came the stroke of pure genius.

“Why should the customer pay for bandwidth to download the product?  Why not simply off-load that cost to the book supplier?”   And a new day dawned.

Now, with somewhere close to 20 million Kindle readers in the market – and growing fast – Amazon is looking to change the world completely in November 2011.

How?  By giving away tablet PCs in order to sell more books. Now THAT's what KitGuru calls a revolution.

How much more attractive can Amazon get?

KitGuru says: Can't wait to see how this puts the cat among the pigeons. But this is just the tip of the iceberg of what's going to be evolving in the various retail markets over the next year or two. Cisco is moving to servers and considering giving away all of the office software you will ever need – directly attacking Microsoft. Intel now owns an OS company. Will ‘own the hardware – get the software for free' or ‘ sell the software and give the hardware away' win?

Comments below or in the KitGuru forum.

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