ICMP traffic increasing on most backbones Re: GLBX ICMP rate limiting

Thu Aug 28 16:28:41 UTC 2003

* Sean Donelan said:
> 
> On Thu, 28 Aug 2003, Steve Carter wrote:
> > The rate-limiters have become more interesting recently, meaning they've
> > actually started dropping packets (quite a lot in some cases) because of
> > the widespread exploitation of unpatched windows machines.
> 
> Yep, the amount of ICMP traffic seems to be increasing on most backbones
> due to worm activity.  It probably hasn't exceed HTTP yet, but it is
> surpasssing many other protocols.  Some providers have seen ICMP increase
> by over 1,000% over the last two weeks.

The results of our data collection is almost unbelievable.  I've had to
have it rechecked multiple times because I had a hard time even groking
the scale.  Like, dude, is your calculator broken?

It appears that the volume is still growing ... even with the widespread
publicity.  Those of us that are sourcing this traffic need to protect
ourselves and the community by rate limiting because the exploited are
not.

I agree with Wayne that we need to be smart (reads: very specific) about
how we rate limit during this event.  When the event is over we can go 
back to just a simple rate limit that protects us in a very general way 
until the next event jumps up.

<private message>
Yuh, Jay, I changed my tune ... you were right.
</private message>

-Steve