E-commerce attack imminent; Sudden increase in port scanning for SSL doesn't look good

[Matt Crawford]

> E-commerce attack imminent; Sudden increase in port scanning for SSL
> doesn't look good.
> http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1975
>
> ... aka not necessarily an attack on SSL itself ... but identifying
> end-points with open SSL ports as attack targets i.e. end-points with
> open SSL ports are likely to be somewhat higher value targets than
> machines w/o SSL ports .... since the operators possibly feel they have
> something to protect.


I can't see any reasonable way to derive your conclusion from the cited 
article.

    "The surge began on 15 July, the day before the public disclosure
     of a critical flaw in a server module called mod_ssl.

    "The last time Netcraft observed similar activity was in April,
     shortly before a wave of attacks on SSL servers that included the
     compromise of some major e-commerce sites. Attackers used a flaw
     in Microsoft's implementation of SSL to install malicious code..."

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