A smurf attack would be doing something like sending ICMP echo to party
A with party B's return address so A and B get zapped. A think's B is
doing it, but B is actually the real target and doesn't know why they're
getting all this junk comming from A. This however also chews up much of
the attacker's bandwith as well. Thus is not a terribly productive attack
unless the attacker's bandwith far exceeds A and/or B.
This new attack is a variation, but solves the bandwith problem for the
attacker however. Basicly, a trojan or rogue program gets installed on
lots of machines in the field. The attacker then only needs send an activation
code or attack instructions to all those in the field, then the combined
efforts of all takes down the victim. This can be things like a simple
perl script that just initiates web connections and drops them, etc., thus
chewing up the victim's resources from multiple points.
There has been word of such arsenal developments, however, is there any
coordinated or massive plan to take things down for new years? Who knows...
That would be pure speculation at this point until someone starts finding
lots of compromised boxes with such a trojan on board.
And after all, Clinton did address the public and ask that the crackers
play nice for new year's until we get the Y2K stuff sorted out, right?
;-)
On Thu, Dec 16, 1999 at 09:48:42AM -0600, Brian wrote:
>
> Its sounds like you are describing a smurf attack, which has been around
> for a very long time.
>
>
>
--
J. Scott Kasten
jsk AT tetracon-eng DOT net
"That wasn't an attack. It was preemptive retaliation!"
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