Thanks to PHRACK and 2600, two publications catering to the computer underground that recently published recipes for this particular type of sabotage, dozens of other places on the Net were hit. ““This was an attack on all of us,’’ says the CEO of one Internet service provider on the West Coast. He claims that almost all major ISPs have been affected; those who claim otherwise, he adds, are ““lying or lucky.’’ Larger systems were only slowed down, so they weren’t forced to go public.
There’s no simple defense against the sabotage. The easiest solution would be for all Internet access companies to filter their outgoing traffic to make sure the data have legitimate return addresses. Late last week the Computer Emergency Response Team at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute issued just that recommendation. But it could take months for companies to take the necessary technical steps.
No files have been destroyed, and the attacks so far have caused little more than inconvenience. Still, if companies are slow to respond, large pockets of the Internet could be brought to a standstill.
