Mafiaboy: Conficker Was a Ruse

"In 2000, 15-year-old Canadian Michael Calce, better known by his online hacking alias as Mafiaboy, attacked high-profile Web sites -- including CNN.com, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon.com, Excite and E*trade -- and took them offline, causing over $1 billion in losses. He was convicted and spent five years away from the Internet.

"Now Mafiaboy's back, and he has a warning for the industry: The Internet is still broken.

"Speaking here at the IT360 conference, Calce reflected on what he did nearly ten years ago and provided a few ideas on how security should be improved today.

"According to Calce, you need to look no further than the Conficker worm, and the worry generated by its expected activation last week, to see why things haven't changed much since 2000."

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• ComputerWorld: Update: Mafiaboy a copycat; attacks could have been stopped(Apr 21, 2000)
• ZDNet: DoS attacks: What really happened(Apr 20, 2000)
• TechWeb/Reuters: Arrest Made In February Web Attacks(Apr 19, 2000)