The US-based National Infrastructure Protection Centre (NIPC), the
FBI's cybersecurity agency, issued a warning of increased
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on 18 September.
Denial of service attacks flood the target computer with so many
requests for information that they become overloaded and are unable
to respond to legitimate requests for service.
Multiple computers worldwide are taken over by DDoS attacks, with
target systems knocked out from several locations. Such an attack
took major Web sites such as Yahoo and Amazon offline for as long
as a week in February 2000.
A group of Web site defacers called the Dispatchers have announced
their readiness for such actions on 18 September, according to the
NIPC. The Dispatchers have already claimed responsibility for
defacements of some Web sites and have said they have begun to
target infrastructure components such as routers.
The latest advice comes soon after a similar notice issued by the
NIPC on 14 September warning of a possible increase in the number
of cyberattacks targeted against the "perceived perpetrators of the
11 September 2001 terror attacks".
Some incidents have already occurred, such as a Web site crack
which resulted in subscriber addresses to a Muslim fundamentalist
e-mail list being published on the Web.
US intelligence officials believe the perpetrators of last week's
attacks have links with Islamic extremist groups. But President
Bush and other government leaders have stressed that the attackers
are not supported by mainstream Islamic doctrine.
The NIPC offers a tool that systems administrators can use to check
whether their systems have been infected with common DDoS tools in
preparation for an attack. The tool can be downloaded at
www.nipc.gov/warnings/advisories/2000/00-055.htm .