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Hack Attack Smacks Root Servers
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-02-07
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Several of the main root servers for the Internet withstood immense saturation coming from unknown attackers who may have been traced to South Korea.
 | | Hack Attack Smacks Root Servers |  |
A heavy inflow of Internet traffic directed at root servers operated by the Department of Defense and ICANN caused plenty of headaches for administrators, but the servers mostly held up against the attack. The root servers serve as the main DNS servers for the Internet.
Broadband Reports said the attacks focused on the F, I, M, L (ICANN), and G (US Department of Defense) servers. Reviewing the aftermath of the attacks has caused researchers to think they began in South Korea, according to an AP report.
Those researchers are continuing to investigate:
"There was what appears to be some form of attack during the night hours here in California and into the morning," said John Crain, chief technical officer for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. He said the attack was continuing and so was the hunt for its origin.
"I don't think anybody has the full picture," Crain said. "We're looking at the data."
It is thought that the attackers used a botnet of numerous other machines to pull off the attempt to disrupt the root servers. Few people suffered any real delays or impact from the disruption, thanks to the way workloads are distributed to other machines in the world.
It's a contrast to October 2002, when an attack against all 13 root servers took place. That incident dropped nine of the thirteen root servers, but the other four continued to operate normally during the hour-long DDoS effort.
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Tag: Root Servers
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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