“… federal investigators gained cold comfort from the fact
that this week’s massive attacks on the Internet sites woke
people up to the risks of the digital age.”
“Private Internet service providers and Internet sites have been
turning over computer logs to help trace the attacks that
temporarily overloaded sites such as eBay and ETrade, Bentivoglio
said. Requests for protective software have surged.”
“Investigators prefer to trace attacks while still in progress,
but that is difficult and has not been possible this week. So they
are relying on computer transaction records at dozens, possibly
hundreds, of company sites, university computer systems and other
places…”
“… the FBI posted free software on its Web site that would
allow computer owners to detect whether denial-of-service tools,
known as daemons, had been secretly placed on their computers.
Some 2,600 companies and others downloaded the free software, and
three found daemons, triggering FBI criminal investigations.
“Daemons are later activated by a signal from a remote location
or an internal timer to attack a victim computer site with so many
messages it cannot handle them all.”
“Dozens or even hundreds of zombie computers have been used in
past attacks…”