“Computer security experts said today that evidence may now
suggest the three days of attacks on leading Web sites had been the
work of more than one person or group.”
“And while the Internet community searched aggressively for
leads, computer experts said that it would be difficult even to
determine which computers initiated the attacks, let alone find the
responsible parties.”
“… security experts said that Web sites and the Internet
in general would remain vulnerable for the near future because so
many organizations were failing to take steps to prevent their
computers from being used by vandals to initiate the
attacks.”
“Network service providers said that the recent assaults
included two types of attacks…”
“In the first, known as a SYN flood, attackers hack into — and
install software on — a large number of computers, then use those
machines to bombard the victim site with requests…”
“To prevent any tracing of these requests, the vandals employ a
practice called spoofing, which alters the initiating
address…”
“The second type, known as a smurf attack, again involves the
use of compromised machines, but it also employs a large
third-party network of computers to “amplify” the data used in the
attack…”
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