Analyst: be prepared for war with hackers

Aharon Friedman, a former scientist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and now chairman of Internet security consultant company Fortress Technologies warned that companies should prepare for much more damaging attacks in the future.

"E-commerce sites should prepare their networks as if they are going to war. These recent attacks were just distractions, they were not intrusive," said Friedman.

He added that "intrusive attacks on unprotected sites will have alarming and lasting consequences", to the economy and also the psyche of Internet users.

Friedman has made a recommendation that companies review their security and implement security at the network layer to prevent future hacker attacks from being more damaging than the recent denial of service techniques used in targeting sites such as Yahoo and E-bay.