The most well-known trick criminal hackers have in their bag is the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. To create a DDoS attack, hackers use a botnet to send mass amounts of traffic at a website server, bringing the site down. Recent attacks targeted CIA's public website, Wordpress and credit card companies. The "hacks" make big news and it seems like almost every other day another large commercial website is taken down. The most important thing to know about a DDos attack is that it is really not a hack at all. The purpose of DDoS attacks are not to steal information but rather to prove a point. "We control massive botnets and can make life very difficult for you" is the message that hackers are sending. A DDoS is what many would call a "dumb" attack because it is sheer force, a giant hammer aimed at a Web server. Yet, large-scale dumb attacks are often the most difficult to stop. What can companies do to protect themselves against a DDoS attack on their doorstep?
Beef Up, Team Up and Black HoleThe simplest way to survive a DDoS attack is to build your own data centers - like Apple, Google, Amazon or Microsoft - that can handle any amount of traffic. Most big corporations (not to mention small and medium businesses) do not have the ability to scale the way the Internet giants do. Apple built a 500,000 square foot data center worth about $1 billion in North Carolina that was finished in April. But for other companies, building their own data mammoth data centers is not an effective use of resources. "About the only thing to do is beef up or go into a cooperative," said Chester Wisniewski, a security researcher and blogger with Sophos, in a recent interview. "That is the advantage that small and medium business have with being in a giant cloud. They pay a small amount for the data they use yet have all the benefits of being in a massive data center." Read more: ReadWrite web
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Beef Up, Team Up and Black HoleThe simplest way to survive a DDoS attack is to build your own data centers - like Apple, Google, Amazon or Microsoft - that can handle any amount of traffic. Most big corporations (not to mention small and medium businesses) do not have the ability to scale the way the Internet giants do. Apple built a 500,000 square foot data center worth about $1 billion in North Carolina that was finished in April. But for other companies, building their own data mammoth data centers is not an effective use of resources. "About the only thing to do is beef up or go into a cooperative," said Chester Wisniewski, a security researcher and blogger with Sophos, in a recent interview. "That is the advantage that small and medium business have with being in a giant cloud. They pay a small amount for the data they use yet have all the benefits of being in a massive data center." Read more: ReadWrite web
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