-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-
>From APB News:
http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/internetcrime/2000/02/10/hack_report0210_01.
html?s=syn.daily_hack_report0210
Who's to Blame for Web Site Shutdowns?
'Internet Militia' Takes Credit
Feb. 10, 2000
By David Noack
PITTSBURGH (APBnews.com) -- This week's cyberattack against some
of the World Wide Web's leading sites does not seem to be the
work of any coordinated effort, said a government-funded
troubleshooting group.
But another computer expert, who does not want to be named, said
he and a partner have tracked down a single source for this
week's shutdowns at Yahoo, eBay, Amazon.com and Buy.com and other
Web sites.
"It is a single computer run by a single person who is barely old
enough to shave," said the source.
And a message purporting to be from an anarchist group said the
attacks were launched to show the government that the Internet
cannot be controlled.
A denial-of-service attack overwhelmed Yahoo for three hours
Monday, and other shutdowns followed Tuesday and Wednesday at
other Web sites.
The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), based at
Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, reported that an
ongoing investigation has not shown any link or common thread to
the attacks. Jed Pickel, a member of CERT's technical team, said
the cyberattack does not appear to be the work of "one specific
tool or method of denial-of-service attack" common among all of
the virtual victims.
SYN floods and smurf attacks
Denial of service, SYN floods and smurf attacks are variations on
the same theme -- flooding a computer with an overwhelming number
of packets of data.
"Some sites have reported seeing SYN floods, while others have
been seeing 'smurf' attacks. Evidence suggests that some attacks
may be distributed denial-of-service attacks," Pickel said.
Pickel's analysis is shared by a number of computer security
experts who have been examining and tracking down who may be
responsible for the most ambitious attack on the Web in its short
history.
But the expert who believes he has tracked the culprit said that
someone claiming responsibility for all the attacks has been in
touch with him and appears to be angry about the growing use of
the Internet by business. A message called it "the whorehouse of
e-commerce."
The source also said that other, less well-known sites were
targeted, but no additional Web sites have acknowledged being
attacked.
'Internet Militia' takes credit
Late today, a group calling itself the Sovereign Anarchist
Internet Militia (SAIM) claimed responsibility for the attacks. A
statement called the Web shutdowns a "warning shot."
"Our government, in light of recent events, is moving forward to
crack down on 'hackers and hacker activity,'" the statement said.
"I can only say that government's attempt to control the Internet
is not only futile, but moot. It is impossible for any government
or corporation to control it, due to its design. If the federal
government, or any branch of government for that matter, or any
corporate board continues to threaten more control of the
Internet, I can guarantee that more attacks will occur (not only
ones similar to this week, but more severe attacks) by the many
underground organizations that share our same cause and beliefs."
In recent weeks, reports of hackers breaking into commercial
databases to steal credit card numbers, not to mention this
week's shutdowns, have raised concern about Internet security.
But many of the tools used by hackers have been available for
several years.
More reports of attacks
Pickel said the organization has been issuing denial-of-service
attack warnings and advisories since 1996.
"On an average day we receive three or four reports from sites
affected by bandwidth consumption denial-of-service attacks,"
said Pickel.
He said there is a little a Web site can do to protect itself,
but there are some steps they can take to reduce the damage.
CERT's 1999 annual report said that so-called distributed denial
of service tools were on the increase and getting more
sophisticated. The report paints a disturbing picture of an
increase in computer intrusions, which are much more sinister and
destructive than in the past, because new software allows a
vandal to launch several thousand attacks against a target or
targets with a single command.
Number of attacks up sharply
A year-end 16-page report details a variety of computer problems
and concerns that were funneled to CERT. Computer viruses also
played a prominent role in fostering fear among Internet users
last year.
In all, CERT received 8,268 incident reports in 1999, a nearly
three-fold increase from the 3,734 incidents reported in 1998.
An incident includes reports involving attacks on computer
network infrastructure, widespread automated attacks and
cyber-assaults that deal with new vulnerabilities, techniques and
tools.
"There is a growth that is commensurate with the Internet
itself," said Bill Pollak, a CERT spokesman.
Viruses more virulent
While denial-of-service attacks are getting the bulk of
attention, there was also a good deal of computer virus activity
last year, including the introduction of a new delivery method,
in which the program containing the virus did not even have to be
opened to infect a single computer or a corporate network.
The major computer viruses last year included Melissa,
CIH/Chernobyl, Happy99 and ExploreZip.
The Melissa virus, which hit last April, was spread mainly as a
Microsoft Word 97 and Word 2000 attachments in e-mails.
"In the past we did not have much stake in a virus that was
transmitted via a floppy disk. That does not involve Internet
security, and it's not really in the scope of what we do. This
year we became more involved with viruses because the delivery
mechanism of viruses tends to be via the Internet rather than
floppy disks," said Pollak.
David Noack is an APBnews.com staff writer
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