Fergie's Tech Blog

VeriSign: DoS Attack Could 'Shut Down The Internet'

Tom Espiner writes on ZDNet UK:

Denial-of-service attacks are growing faster than bandwidth is being added to the internet, according to VeriSign, the company that administers the .com domain.

Criminal groups selling services online are increasingly threatening the fabric of the internet, as the size of the compromised networks of computers they control increases, according to VeriSign.

The company claimed that a successful denial-of-service (DoS) attack against VeriSign could bring down the internet. "There are attacks attempting to shut down our servers," said Ken Silva, VeriSign's chief security officer. "This would effectively shut down the internet."

Silva said that although DoS attacks are difficult to trace, there are "a couple of well-known groups in Russia, China and Romania" that may be acting with their government's knowledge. "It would be hard to imagine groups who have this much activity going unnoticed by their governments," he said.

posted by Fergie @ 9/25/2007 12:10:00 PM