http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/mg18725125.900 13 August 2005 New Scientist Print Edition. CYBERCRIMINALS are making a mint bringing e-commerce firms to a standstill with distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), according to the UK's National Criminal Intelligence Service. In a report issued on 3 August, called the 2005 UK Threat Assessment www.ncis.co.uk/ukta.asp the NCIS details cases from 2004 in which a gang based in Russia used a botnet, a network of virus-infected computers, to flood several online gambling websites with useless data, so they couldn't trade with their users. The extortionists' botnet had a total bandwidth of 3 to 4 gigabits per second, exposing the firms' servers to the equivalent of 200,000 emails per second. "The attacks were soon followed by an extortion demand, often for no more than $5000," says the NCIS. "As some companies were losing £100,000 an hour while under attack, many chose to pay up." Issue 2512 of New Scientist magazine, 13 August 2005, page 27 _________________________________________ Attend ToorCon Sept 16-18th, 2005 Convention Center San Diego, California www.toorcon.org
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