* SCO is victim of distributed denial-of-service attack
Most publicly-traded high-tech software companies normally would not put out a press release stating that it was the victim of a crippling network hack attack – but that is exactly what SCO did last week. But then some would argue that SCO hasn’t been behaving like other high-tech software companies for most of 2003.
SCO last week claimed to be the victim of a distributed denial-of-service attack, which it says disabled thousands of servers at the company’s Lindon, Utah headquarters and left the company’s Web site unavailable for hours.
SCO, which owns the patent for Unix System V, says the attack took place on Wednesday, Dec. 10 at around 4:20 a.m. Mountain Time. The attack method used was a “syn attack,” a common distributed DoS attack method where servers are flooded with modified TCP/IP handshake signals that cannot be processed, while flooding a companies Internet pipe.
“SCO is working with law enforcement officials and gathering information through mechanisms that we have in place to help us identify the origin of these attacks,” said company spokesperson, Blake Stowell in a statement. “We deplore these activities by those who try to intimidate or harass legitimate businesses through cyber terrorist tactics while hiding their true identity.”
There was no hint from SCO that the motive for the attack was related in any way to the company’s ongoing lawsuit against IBM over Unix patent infringement issues in Linux.
