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<snip>...HACKER HYSTERIA
While the White House and the media were going into full panic alert over what they called "denial of service attacks," i.e. a few hours interruption in the business of a few big cyber-corporations, the virus fighters at the McAfee company took things more in stride. In a message to subscribers, they explained how the attacks were accomplished using computers of the unsuspecting: "A hacker breaks into someone else's computer, and places a special program (called a "Zombie") on that computer. The hacker activates the Zombie program, which begins sending data to the computers of one or more major Web sites. These "packets" of data mimic the signals sent by a legitimate user requesting information from the Web site. The Zombie program sends out so many data packets so quickly that the Web site servers are overloaded, and are unable to respond to requests from legitimate users. At no time during this kind of attack does the hacker actually break into the data stored on the Web site's computers. Therefore, there is very little danger that any personal users' information is at risk of being stolen. The reason the hacker breaks into a third party's computer ~~ is to use it as a launching pad for their attack. If not for the fear of getting caught, they could just as well launch their attack from their own computer. The Zombie program, by itself, does no damage to its host computer. Unlike the political elite, however, McAfee did not call for new repressive legislation, retrofitting the Internet, or beefing up the police. Instead, pointing out that the hackers mainly used computers that have "always-on" connections such as DSL or cable modems, McAffee proposed that "the simplest preventive measure in this case is to turn off the computer when not in use." These folks had better stick to computers. They'll never make it as politicians or journalists....<snip> --
A.C. Szul http://www.erols.com/mack97 "There is no truth, only fictions woven by power to justify itself." -- Bruce Thornton, "Plagues Of The Mind" |
