Massive Denial-of-Service Attack Looming

CERT warned that over the past two months it has received reports that computer vandals are scouring the Internet for computers containing a type of vulnerability that allows for the installation of automated "toolkits" that permit the intruder to control the affected computer for use in an attack against another computer or network. Such exploits, known as distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDOS), are used to bring down a network by flooding it with a high volume of traffic, and often involve hundreds of affected computers - or "zombies" - directed at a single network or computer simultaneously. In the most recent incident, CERT officials recorded more than 560 hosts at 220 Internet sits around the world that unwittingly participated in a single DDOS attack.

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