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| Panda Reports on the Evolving Threat of Smurfing and Fraggling Despite the evolution of information technologies and cybercrime, one type of attack remains a steady, unchanged threat: denial of service attacks. It is now eight years since the first appearance of two of the most popular types of denial of service attacks: smurfing and fraggling. Smurfing consists, in general terms, of a denial of service (DoS) attack against a computer by using a vulnerable network. It involves sending a message (broadcast) from the attacker's computer to all computers in the vulnerable network, simulating the victim and requesting a reply. In this way, the targeted computer is saturated by numerous messages from computers on the network. Fraggling is an enhanced version of smurfing, with the attacker simulating the victim, requesting more information from computers on the network so the victim is even more saturated than in the previous case. Nowadays, the most common means for launching denial of service attacks are networks of zombies. These are groups of computers, commonly known as bots, that have been hijacked by malware. They can be controlled remotely by malicious users and perpetrate coordinated action, such as mass mailing or denial of service attacks, or even more silent and unidentifiable operations, such as targeted attacks. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Computing News :: home page |