CYBERSPACE — Did the internet seem a little sluggish and listless on Tuesday? If so, it wasn’t just you, it wasn’t your operating system, it wasn’t your connection method, and it wasn’t your computer choking — it was the internet itself.According to industry experts, at least three of the 13 computers that provide the backbone of support for the world wide traffic stream that makes up the internet fell victim to what is being called “one of the most significant attacks against the internet since 2002” by some media sources.
The crack attack lasted for up to 12 hours, during which tech wizards scrambled to redirect and process packets attempting to make their way around the planet. Their work ensured that the majority of online resource users didn’t notice much, if anything.
Although the reason for the attack, which employed infected “zombie” computers, is still unknown, researcher Duane Wessels, of the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis at the San Diego Supercomputing Center observed that “it doesn’t seem to be extortion or anything like that.”
Although the system crackers seem to have been keen to confuse people about their locations, a great deal of suspect traffic involved in the assault was traced to South Korea. Given the use of the highjacked “zombie” computer force, the location of the actual Denial of Service masterminds is unknown.
UltraDNS, which is responsible for operating a number of servers that manage .org domain websites, appears to have been the primary target of the attack, although UltraDNS’s parent company, NeuStar Inc., has only confirmed that it received an unusually large amount of traffic yesterday. Additionally, servers operated by the Defense Department were among those fending off hostile approaches. The Department of Homeland Security has confirmed that its cybersecurity forces have observed “anomalous” traffic.
“The nature of the traffic has not been confirmed,” DHS representative Russ Knocke told the Associated Press, “and the servers, which are overseas, remain operational.” Further, Knocke assured Americans that “There are no indications of any direct nexus to the United States at this time. Also, there is no credible intelligence to suggest an imminent threat to the homeland or our computing systems at this time.”
John Crain, chief technical officer for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said that the attack is still in force, as is the search for those responsible. “I don’t think anybody has the full picture,” he told the AP. “We’re looking at the data.”
In spite of the scope of this attack, IT insiders agree that it has thus far been less serious than the October 2002 assault that targeted the same 13 “root” servers. The reason for this is said to be the international redistribution of workloads possible due to technological advances in recent years.
While this is good news, senior technology consultant at London-based Sophos, Graham Cluley, wants computer users to realize that info request bombardments such as that experienced yesterday and, to a lesser extent, today, “could have brought the Web to its knees, and while the resilience of the root servers should be commended, more needs to be done to tackle the root of the problem — the lax attitude of some users toward IT security.”
