Major Internet Attack - No One Noticed
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On February 6, 2007 an attack took place on the Internet which tried to take down the major backbone of the entire Internet. The attack against the root servers, which handles all Internet traffic, wasn’t done by stealthy minded hackers but by people just like us. People who have allowed their systems to be unprotected and that are now being used as soliders for the invading force.
Hard to believe? Will it did happen. Sophos reported yesterday this very story in which they stated:
“These zombie computers could have brought the web to its knees, and while the resilience of the root servers should be commended, more needs to be done to tackle the root of the problem - the lax attitude of some users towards IT security,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. “Society is almost totally reliant on the internet for day-to-day communication - it’s ironic that the people who depend on the web may have been the ones whose computers were secretly trying to bring it down.”
Root servers, which manage the internet’s Domain Name System, help to convert website names such as amazon.com to their numeric IP address - essentially acting as an address book for the internet. UltraDNS, which manages traffic for websites ending with the suffix .org and .info, confirmed that it had witnessed an unusual increase in traffic. In all, three of the 13 servers at the top of the DNS hierarchy are said to have felt the impact of the attack, although none are thought to have stopped working entirely.”
This is a real eye opener since so much of what we do as a society is now tied directly to the Internet. I remember reading where just a single system was controlling some 1.5 million computers, until it was finally shutdown.
[tags]internet, attack, sophos, warning, traffic, [/tags]
14 Comments
Eric
February 8th, 2007
at 11:51pm
This is unreal. Can’t there be a safer internet solution some how?
Wayne
February 9th, 2007
at 3:56am
Even when people are given the worlds best security software and printed instructions on how to use it, most are just TOO LAZY to do the updates and scans to keep their computers free of malware. It’s truly deplorable!
Ron Schenone
February 9th, 2007
at 6:01am
Hello Eric and Wayne,
Thanks you both for your comments.
Eric,
The Internet is safe, it’s the users that cause the problems. Which brings up the question of - should user’s of the Internet be licensed like HAM operators? I’ll be doing a article on this subject.
Wayne,
It’s not only being Lazy, but there are people who don’t even have a clue on how to protect their systems. Again, I’ll be explaining that also in my article and some of my experiences.
Thanks to you both, Ron
f0rw4rd.sl4sh
February 9th, 2007
at 8:41am
Most Windows sheeple are lazy and others think that if they have anti-virus/anti-spyware installed, it will do everything for them automagically in the middle of the night.. If the Windows users
stay ignorant of necessary maintenance, pretty soon there will be no internet at all.. Then we all will be screwed..
Save the Internet, adopt a penguin..
Ron Schenone
February 9th, 2007
at 8:53am
Thanks for the comment. I have one system that is penguin friendly.
newf
February 9th, 2007
at 10:19am
“should user’s of the Internet be licensed like HAM operators?” Sure, if you want to eliminate the 90% who wouldn’t be able to pass the exam. 8-þ
anonymous
February 9th, 2007
at 10:23am
Maybe root servers should be set up to sniff a Windows machine trying to use it and drop all packets from the windows machine. That’ll be a nice feather in Vista’s hat, having it banned from the Internet.
Ron Schenone
February 9th, 2007
at 11:11am
newf said and anonymous,
Thanks for the comments. Oh…. the test would be very, very simple. Kind of like a driver’s license test. Just a few rules of the road type things, and make it multiple choice.
Thanks, Ron
Frank Fleischer
February 9th, 2007
at 11:39am
In my experience, the problem is less from people being lazy than from their being clueless. They go to a big box store, select a computer for all the wrong reasons from an uninformed sales person, go home, plug it in, turn it on, and proceed to ignore all the warnings and caveats simply because they don’t understand them.
I’m not technically oriented enough to talk about solutions in detail, but in principal, it seems to me that the point of control needs to be at the ISP level, where the ISP monitors traffic to spot the offenders, gives them a warning and some suggestions, and if the warning is not heeded, cuts them off.
Ron Schenone
February 9th, 2007
at 1:23pm
Hello Frank,
I concur. We always forget that there are new people just getting into computers for the first time, who haven’t a clue about security.
Thanks for the comments.
Ron
Huntsville Small Business Web Sites Optimization Blog e.Biz.earnings.com SEO.SMB » Blog Archive » Software Lifecycle Management, Web Applications: Users Wonder but don’t Trust
February 10th, 2007
at 3:39am
[...] Keep reading and think twice about internet security and what the hack the IT bods are ranting about, because it concerns your dependence to web services, the same as you depend to other commodities. [...]
Rick Evans
February 11th, 2007
at 10:25am
And is Microsoft doing anything to protect the web? Nope, it’s busy protecting Hollywood. Go, Vista!
Ron Schenone
February 11th, 2007
at 5:31pm
Hi Rick,
Thanks for the comment.
Regards, Ron
Fyre Vortex
June 23rd, 2008
at 6:05am
Woah… This is crazy. I’m bookmarking this to keep up to date… The Internet is more dangerous than I thought now…
FyreVortex