DoS attack against MallorcaWeb

MallorcaWeb's server suffered yesterday a "denial-of-service" (DoS) attack, that is an explicit attempt by attackers to prevent legitimate users from accessing all MallorcaWeb's services. Thanks to the immediate intervention of the Network Engineers responsible for the server, within a couple of hours the problem was under control and all services started working again regularly.

DoS attacks are aimed at devices and networks with exposure to the Internet. Their goal is to cripple a device or network so that external users no longer have access to the network resources. Without hacking password files or stealing sensitive data, a denial-of-service hacker simply fires up a program that will generate enough traffic to your site that it denies service to the site's legitimate users.

The "denial-of-service" (DoS) attack agents are so simple to execute that they have grown increasingly popular. Recently, during february 6, 7 and 8, other high-profile Web sites such as Buy.com, Amazon.com, CNN.com and Yahoo! also suffered denial-of-service attacks.

Some denial-of-service attacks can be executed with limited resources against a large, sophisticated site. For example, an attacker with an old PC and a slow modem may be able to disable much faster and more sophisticated machines or networks.

More information:
CERT®: Denial of Service
CERT®: Advisory CA-2000-01

Date of publication: 02/04/2000

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