Explore the latest news and trends  

Sign up for our weekly security newsletter


Be the first to receive important updates on security





Send

Canadian Websites Suffer DoS Attack from Storm Botnet

Researchers are helding the aggressive Storm worm responsible for an extensive Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack that affected various Websites in Canada during the second week of August 2007. The assault may not have been focused and successful, but it shows that the Storm worm botnet possesses the power of a DoS capability.

While the attacks crushed the Canadian sites, it was certainly not a targeted DoS assault. The attacks did not aim at specific Websites. But they spread across and covered a wide extent of the Internet, said Johannes Ullrich, chief research officer at the SANS Institute. InformationWeek published this in news on August 13, 2007.

The denial-of-service part of the attack was an unplanned side-effect. Actually, the massive amount of spam mails slowed down the servers. Usually, when the whole lot of spam is unleashed, one cannot measure or tell the type of consequences.

Since past many months, the Storm worm has been blowing the Internet, delivering incredible amounts of spam mails. Most of them have been sending e-greeting cards enticing unwitting users to visit malware-hosting Websites where the malware infects the computer system to turn it into a bot. The different zombie computers are subsequently joined to the botnet that the creators of the Storm worm have been assembling.

The new attack didn't send e-cards. There was also no malware in the spam mails nor did they link to any malicious sites. Moreover, the text content in the e-mails was a collective of meaningless words.

The attackers were probably experimenting something, which didn't work out. It definitely indicates a DoS attack test that they generally conduct before launching a genuine attack, said Ullrich.

In early August 2007, researchers at SecureWorks said that the Storm worm writers had amassed 2,815 bots during the first six months of 2007. That number rose to 1.7 Million as July came to an end.

Storm worm creators, who are building such a huge botnet, intend to do a lot of other things than just send out spam. The whole botnet is built to initiate DoS attacks and the attackers are anticipating exactly that, said researchers at SecureWorks.

Related article: Canadian Retailer Faces Security Breach of Customer Credit Numbers

» SPAMfighter News - 8/29/2007

3 simple steps to update drivers on your Windows PCSlow PC? Optimize your Slow PC with SLOW-PCfighter!Email Cluttered with Spam? Free Spam Filter!

Dear Reader

We are happy to see you are reading our IT Security News.

We do believe, that the foundation for a good work environment starts with fast, secure and high performing computers. If you agree, then you should take a look at our Business Solutions to Spam Filter & Antivirus for even the latest version of Exchange Servers - your colleagues will appreciate it!

Go back to previous page
Next