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ZDNet > Business & Tech > Inter@ctive Week > The ABCs Of A DOS Attack |
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 February 10, 2000 The ABCs Of A DOS Attack By Connie Guglielmo
By the time you read this, it may be that the hacker/hackers responsible for the shutdowns of several popular Web sites over the past few days may have already explained the reasons behind their denial-of-service attacks. I don't have any idea of who's behind the attacks or why they pick the targets they do. I don't know if it's a single hacker, a small group of hackers or several groups of hackers. But whoever is behind the attacks, it looks to me as though they're working their way through the alphabet. If you buy into the idea there are three competing hackers participating in a game of "See what I can do," it appears someone is taking it from "A", someone is covering the back of the alphabet and someone is taking the middle. What the heck am I talking about? Look at the list of sites that were hit as of Wednesday night: Amazon.com, Buy.com, CNN, Datek (Datek is now saying that it was their own computer glitch, but I'm not convinced), eBay and E*Trade (which I count as "f" for financial site. No other major site that begins with an "F" comes to mind, and why bother with them when you get so much more publicity mileage for knocking E*Trade out for while. It's my conspiracy theory, after all.) What's more, the hackers overloaded the computers at Global Center, which hosts Yahoo! Web servers. So Global Center could be "g." Then you have the back of the alphabet: ZDNet, Yahoo and, according to a press release I'm now reading, WorldBestBuy.com. Time Warner and UUNet also report they have been hit. I couldn't think of a site that begins with "X" but I'm sure someone out there has one. Have to say I'd skip "X" too. If it's not well known, what's the point. From the middle of the alphabet, you have MSN. The attacks can go either way from there - to some major site beginning with an "L" or "N" (just in case you're among the alphabetically challenged.) Guess we'll have to see. So what does my alphabet theory add up to? I have no clue. Without a statement as to why the attacks are going on, I can only speculate on motives and right now. Given there's been no stated motive, I'll go along with everyone else and say we're dealing with a hacker/hackers disrupting major sites from A to Z just because they can. Even groups such as RTMark.com who have used denial-of-service tactics to voice their displeasure - RTMark.com was one of the groups that staged a virtual sit-in against online toyseller eToys.com in December to protest a domain name dispute - think the unexplained hacker attacks give groups like them a bad name. "When we do denial of service attacks, we're doing it with thousands of people helping, each one contributing his or her bandwidth in a show of support," RTMark Spokesman Ernest Lucha told me Wednesday. "I have no idea what the motives are [behind the current wave of attacks]. If I knew what their motives were and thought they were protesting something or trying to make a point, then I could look at their motivation and say whether I agreed or disagreed with what they're doing. But if it's just for fun, then it's ridiculous." I'd say it's beyond ridiculous. If the unknown hacker/hackers are doing this just to prove that they can do it, then they're no better than the schoolyard bully who beats up kids just because he's bigger. So to the hacker/hackers causing the attack - if I'm wrong and you've got some socially profound reason for shutting down sites, let's hear it. I dare you.
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