CERT goes down to DoS attacks

CERT/CC, one of the most important reporting centers for Internet security problems, has been offline sporadically Tuesday and Wednesday due to a distributed denial-of-service attack.

CERT/CC, the Computer Emergency Response Team/Coordination Center, posted a notice on its Web site Tuesday saying that the site had been under attack since 11:30 a.m. EST and was frequently either unavailable or very slow. CERT/CC is a government-funded computer security research and development center based at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University which monitors Internet security issues such as viruses, vulnerabilities and hacking, and issues warnings about such incidents.

The irony of the situation is one matter, but very much another is how such an attack might affect CERT/CC's ability to issue security alerts and distribute other security information.

The organization is still conducting business and has not lost any data, according to Ian Finlay, an Internet security analyst at CERT/CC. The center is able to send alerts through e-mail, and staff members are available via the organization's hotline.

CERT/CC is working with Internet service providers to investigate and end the attack, Finlay said.

News of the attack on CERT/CC comes only a day after a group of researchers at the University of California at San Diego said in a report that over 4,000 DoS attacks are launched every week.

"We get attacked every day," said Richard Pethia, director of CERT/CC. "The lesson to be learned here is that no one is immune to these kinds of attacks."

A denial-of-service attack is one in which the attackers flood a computer with requests for service, attempting to overload the server's ability to respond. A distributed denial-of-service attack, such as the one CERT/CC is experiencing, comes when an attacker has taken over multiple PCs, called zombies, through hacking or viruses, and uses them to simultaneously attack the victim.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

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