Bulletproof hosting
Bulletproof hosting (BPH) is
BPH providers usually operate in jurisdictions which have lenient laws against such conduct. Most non-BPH service providers prohibit transferring materials over their network that would be in violation of their terms of service and the local laws of the incorporated jurisdiction, and oftentimes any abuse reports would result in takedowns to avoid their autonomous system's IP address block being blacklisted by other providers and by Spamhaus.[5]
History
BPH first became the subject of research in 2006 when security researchers from
Difficulties
Since any abuse reports to the BPH will be disregarded, in most cases, the whole IP block ("netblock") assigned to the BPH's autonomous system will be blacklisted by other providers and third party spam filters. Additionally, BPH also have difficulty in finding network peering points for establishing Border Gateway Protocol sessions, since routing a BPH provider's network can affect the reputation of upstream autonomous systems and transit provider.[11] This makes it difficult for BPH services to provide stable network connectivity, and in extreme cases, they can be completely de-peered;[1] therefore BPH providers evade AS's reputation based fortification such as BGP Ranking and ASwatch through unconventional methodologies.[2]
Web hosting reseller
According to a report, due to their mounting difficulties, BPH providers engage in establishing
Admissible abuses
Most BPH providers promise immunity against
Prevalent jurisdictions for incorporation and location of the data centers for BPH providers include Russia (being more permissive),[19] Ukraine, China, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Belize, Panama and the Seychelles.[20][21]
Impacts
BPH services act as vital network infrastructure providers for activities such as cybercrime and
Criminal actors also run specialized computer programs on BPH providers knowns as
Counterinitiatives against BPH
- Spamhaus Don't Route Or Peer List (DROP) lists netblocks allocated by an established National Internet Registry (NIR) that are used by criminal actors, and doesn't include abused IP address spaces sub-allocated netblocks of a reputable AS.[33]
- Spamhaus Domain Block List (DBL) lists domain names with poor reputation in DNSBL format.[34]
- Spamhaus Botnet Controller List (BCL) lists single IPv4 addresses of botnet masters.[35]
Notable closed services
The following are some of the notable defunct BPH providers:
- CyberBunker, taken down in September 2019.[36]
- McColo, taken down in November 2008.[37]
- Russian Business Network (RBN), taken down in November 2007.[38]
- Atrivo, taken down in September 2008.[39]
- 3FN, taken down by FTC in June 2009.[40][41][42]
- Proxiez, taken down in May 2010.[43]
See also
References
- ^ a b c McCoy, Mi & Wang 2017, p. 805.
- ^ a b Konte, Feamster & Perdisci 2015, p. 625.
- ^ Han, Kumar & Durumic 2021, p. 4.
- ^ "Host of Internet Spam Groups Is Cut Off". The Washington Post. 12 November 2008. Archived from the original on 22 June 2020. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
- ^ Han, Kumar & Durumic 2021, p. 5-6.
- Washington Post. Archivedfrom the original on 15 September 2021. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
- ^ Warren, Peter (15 November 2007). "Hunt for Russia's Web Criminals". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 25 November 2021. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
- ISSN 1063-9527.
- ^ Krebs, Brain (12 November 2008). "Host of Internet Spam Groups Is Cut Off". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 27 May 2012. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
- ^ Krebs, Brain. "Major Source of Online Scams and Spams Knocked Offline". Archived from the original on 30 September 2021. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
- ^ a b Spamhaus Research Team (19 December 2019). "Bulletproof hosting – there's a new kid in town". The Spamhaus Project. Archived from the original on 22 April 2021. Retrieved 21 December 2021.
- ^ a b McCoy, Mi & Wang 2017, p. 806.
- ^ McCoy, Mi & Wang 2017, p. 811.
- ^ Goncharov, Max (15 July 2015). "Criminal Hideouts for Lease: Bulletproof Hosting Services" (PDF). Trend Micro. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 July 2021. Retrieved 5 December 2021.
- ^ Leporini 2015, p. 5.
- ^ Clayton & Moore 2008, p. 209.
- ^ Konte, Feamster & Jung 2008, p. 10.
- ^ Kopp, Strehle & Hohlfeld 2021, p. 2432.
- ^ Caesar, Ed (27 July 2020). "The Cold War Bunker That Became Home to a Dark-Web Empire". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 29 September 2021. Retrieved 5 December 2021.
- ^ Thomas, Elise (8 August 2019). "Inside the bulletproof hosting providers that keep the world's worst websites in business". ABC News. Archived from the original on 4 September 2021. Retrieved 5 November 2021.
- ^ Richardson, Ronny; North, Max M. (1 January 2017). "Ransomware: Evolution, Mitigation and Prevention". International Management Review. 13 (1). Kennesaw State University: 13.
- ^ Collier & Hutchings 2021, p. 1.
- ^ Collier & Hutchings 2021, p. 1-2.
- ^ Bradbury 2010, p. 17.
- ^ Collier & Hutchings 2021, p. 2.
- .
- ^ Durumeric, Zakir; Bailey, Michael; Halderman, J. Alex (August 2014). An internet-wide view of internet-wide scanning. USENIX conference on Security Symposium. USENIX. pp. 65–66.
- .
- ISSN 1353-4858.
- S2CID 58006624. Retrieved 22 December 2021.
- ^ Grauer, Yael (17 January 2016). "Security News This Week: Tim Cook Demands That the White House Defend Encryption". Wired. Archived from the original on 23 April 2021. Retrieved 22 December 2021.
- ^ "Corporate Documents: About Spamhaus". Archived from the original on 14 December 2021. Retrieved 22 December 2021.
- ^ "The Spamhaus Don't Route Or Peer Lists". The Spamhaus Project. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 22 December 2021.
- ^ "The Domain Block List (DBL)". The Spamhaus Project. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 22 December 2021.
- ^ "Spamhaus Botnet Controller List". The Spamhaus Project. Archived from the original on 26 August 2020. Retrieved 22 December 2021.
- ^ Krebs, Brian (28 September 2019). "German Cops Raid 'Cyberbunker 2.0', Arrest 7 in Child Porn, Dark Web Market Sting". Krebs on Security. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
- ^ "Major Source of Online Scams and Spams Knocked Offline", The Washington Post, November 2008.
- ^ "Security Fix - Russian Business Network: Down, But Not Out". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2016-10-07.
- ^ "Scammer-Heavy U.S. ISP Grows More Isolated", The Washington Post, September 2009.
- ^ "The Fallout from the 3FN Takedown", The Washington Post, June 2009.
- ^ "ISP shuttered for hosting 'witches' brew' of spam, child porn", The Register, May 2010
- ^ "Rogue ISP ordered to liquidate, pay FTC $1.08 million", Ars Technica, May 2010.
- ^ 'Bulletproof' ISP for crimeware gangs knocked offline, , The Register, May 2010.
Bibliography
- McCoy, Damon; Mi, Xianghang; Wang, Xiofeng (26 June 2017). "Under the Shadow of Sunshine: Understanding and Detecting Bulletproof Hosting on Legitimate Service Provider Networks". 2017 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP). )
- Han, Catherine; Kumar, Deepak; Durumic, Zakir (2021). "On the Infrastructure Providers that Support Misinformation" (PDF). Stanford University. Archived (PDF) from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
- Konte, Maria; Feamster, Nick; Perdisci, Roberto (17 August 2015). "ASwatch: An AS Reputation System to Expose Bulletproof Hosting ASes". SIGCOMM Association for Computing Machinery. 45 (4). ISSN 0146-4833.
- Leporini, Dino (2015). Architectures and protocols powering illegal content streaming over the Internet. ISBN 978-1-78561-185-8.
- Clayton, Richard; Moore, Tyler (22 December 2008). "The Impact of Incentives on Notice and Take-down". Managing Information Risk and the Economics of Security. ISBN 978-0-387-09761-9.
- Kopp, Daniel; Strehle, Eric; Hohlfeld, Oliver (November 2021). "CyberBunker 2.0 - A Domain and Traffic Perspective on a Bulletproof Hoster". Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security. S2CID 237503582.
- Collier, Benjamin; Hutchings, Alice (15 April 2021). "Cybercrime is (often) boring: maintaining the infrastructure of cybercrime economies". .
- Bradbury, Danny (15 October 2010). "Digging up the hacking underground". Infosecurity. 7 (5): 14–17. ISSN 1754-4548.
- Konte, M.; Feamster, N.; Jung, J. (January 2008). "SAC 025: SSAC Advisory on Fast Flux Hosting and DNS" (PDF). Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) (1). Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 November 2021. Retrieved 12 December 2021.