WORLD / America
Hackers attack key Net traffic computers
(AP)
Updated: 2007-02-07 08:37
ASHINGTON - Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13
computers that help manage global computer traffic Tuesday in one of the
most significant attacks against the Internet since 2002.
Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13 computers that help
manage global computer traffic Tuesday in one of the most significant
attacks against the Internet since 2002. [AP]
Experts said the unusually powerful attacks lasted as long as 12 hours
but passed largely unnoticed by most computer users, a testament to the
resiliency of the Internet. Behind the scenes, computer scientists
worldwide raced to cope with enormous volumes of data that threatened to
saturate some of the Internet's most vital pipelines.
The motive for the attacks was unclear, said Duane Wessels, a researcher
at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis at the San
Diego Supercomputing Center. "Maybe to show off or just be disruptive; it
doesn't seem to be extortion or anything like that," Wessels said.
Other experts said the hackers appeared to disguise their origin, but
vast amounts of rogue data in the attacks were traced to South Korea.
The attacks appeared to target UltraDNS, the company that operates
servers managing traffic for Web sites ending in "org" and some other
suffixes, experts said. Officials with NeuStar Inc., which owns UltraDNS,
confirmed only that it had observed an unusual increase in traffic.
Among the targeted "root" servers that manage global Internet traffic
were ones operated by the Defense Department and the Internet's primary
oversight body.
"There was what appears to be some form of attack during the night hours
here in California and into the morning," said John Crain, chief
technical officer for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers. He said the attack was continuing and so was the hunt for its
origin.
"I don't think anybody has the full picture," Crain said. "We're looking
at the data."
Crain said Tuesday's attack was less serious than attacks against the
same 13 "root" servers in October 2002 because technology innovations in
recent years have increasingly distributed their workloads to other
computers around the globe.
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