Attack targets .info domain system

Mon Nov 25 21:41:10 UTC 2002

Attack targets .info domain system

By Robert Lemos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
November 25, 2002, 1:12 PM PT

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-971178.html?tag=fd_top

An Internet attack flooded domain name manager UltraDNS with a deluge of
data late last week, causing administrators to scramble to keep up and
running the servers that host .info and other domains.

The assault sent nearly 2 million requests per second to each device
connecting the network to the Internet--many times greater than
normal--during the four hours of peak activity that hit the company early
Thursday morning, said Ben Petro, CEO of UltraDNS.

"This is the largest attack that we've seen," Petro said. He stressed that
it didn't affect the company's core domain name system (DNS) services, but
administrators had to work fast to get the attack blocked by the backbone
Internet companies from which UltraDNS gets its connectivity. "From a
network management perspective, it certainly kept us on our toes," he said.

<snip>

UltraDNS, a member of the Internet Society, serves as the primary DNS
provider for the .org domain. In addition, UltraDNS acts as the primary
provider for .info and for the top-level domains of Ireland, Luxembourg,
Norway and nine other domains.

"The reality is that the attacks keep getting bigger, stronger and faster,"
Petro said. "Like terrorism, you don't know when they are going to strike
and how they are going to strike. Until we are able to dedicate attention to
these attacks, until we can follow these attacks to their end, we are all
vulnerable."

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-971178.html?tag=fd_top