Denial of Service Attack, Bot and Botnet
Technology gets sophisticated as the years go by and by the same token, man's knowledge about the use and exploitation of technology increases. The Internet is probably one of mankind's greatest technological advances that contributed not only to the improvement of business and industry but the well-being of individuals as well. But the Internet is not without its flaws because since this technology is made by man, man could defeat it likewise. Throughout the decades, reports have inundated the mass media regarding attacks on the Web and the Internet. These attacks range from a simple Trojan sent via the email, spamming, proliferation of adware and spyware to massive assaults with the use of denial of service attacks (DOS), bots and botnets.It is not unusual for a DOS attack to be accompanied by bots and botnets nowadays. In previous years, the traditional means
(Markoff, 2008)" The attending bots and botnets are shortened terms for "software robots" for the former while an army of bots sent on the offensive becomes known as botnets (Puri, 2003). According to the Arbor Networks report, the network operators said the largest botnets - which in some cases encompass millions of zombie computers - continue to outpace containment efforts and infrastructure investment. " To create this army of zombie internet hosts, attackers typically infect machines of home users having broadband access to internet, networks maintained by universities and small enterprises, with remotely controlled Trojans (Puri, 2003). These are software programs developed by nefarious individuals that perform various automated tasks such as Website hijacking, information gathering, infecting vulnerable computers and networks or sending voluminous packets that overwhelm the intended target. of DOS attack is via syn flood and UDP flood on network protocols (Vamosi, 2008). Bots and botnets are also known as Web agents (because they are under the direction of a control or controller), Web crawlers or spiders (because they "crawl" throughout cyberspace looking for a prey or victim). It is thus important to be constantly vigilant about the threats and vulnerabilities surrounding the information systems infrastructure not only on the corporate level but at the home front too. The present day DOS attacks have evolved, "computer networks are hijacked to form so-called botnets that spray random packets of data in huge streams over the Internet. Once they become infected, the compromised computers become known as "zombies. Further, if an individual's company, Internet service provider or even utilities provider such as water, electricity, telephone or gas gets hit by a DOS attack, the services may be unavailable of degraded while the targeted company fights off the attack. Thus, the computer could be zombified, and use with others to launch a DOS attack. In this regard, many types of DOS attacks nowadays use multitude of zombie computers. The first problem would be if an individual's computer does not have up-to-date operating system and Internet security application patches, the vulnerability to infection is high. These vulnerable computers are taken control of the malicious attackers.
Common topics in this essay:
Web Internet,
Arbor Networks,
,
Trojans Puri,
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zombie computers,
vulnerable computers,
puri 2003,
markoff 2008,
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