July 23, 2004 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Scanning on the Internet for servers running secure socket layer technology has been particularly high in the last week, suggesting that hackers could be profiling targets for future attacks, according to a report by research and analysis firm Netcraft (netcraft.com).
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According to Netcraft, SSL, which is used to encrypt sensitive information for e-commerce transactions, points to the presence of sensitive financial data that hackers would be interested in stealing.
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The report said that scans of port 443, which is used by SSL, have surged since July 15. This is of particular significance, Netcraft suggests, because scanning of this sort is frequently followed by attacks. In April, scanning occurred after exploit code for a critical security hole in Microsoft’s implementation of SSL was published. The scanning was followed by a number of attacks on Australian banks. Last month, the same vulnerability was used to hijack Windows servers running IIS 5.0 and spread phishing trojans to visitors of compromised sites.
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Netcraft said a number of security firms are advising administrators to patch their SSL servers.
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