Information Security News: Florida man charged in botnet attack on Akamai

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://news.com.com/Florida+man+charged+in+botnet+attack+on+Akamai/2100-7350_3-6129226.html

By Caroline McCarthy
October 24, 2006

A Florida man has been charged with launching a distributed 
denial-of-service attack against servers run by Akamai Technologies.

A federal court in Boston on Tuesday heard charges that 32-year-old John 
Bombard of Seminole used a variant of the Gaobot e-mail worm to turn 
computers--including systems at two universities whose names have not 
been disclosed--into an arsenal of "zombies" or "bots" that he could 
control remotely.

He then used this network of hijacked computers, known as a "botnet," to 
send a massive amount of traffic to the domain name system (DNS) servers 
of the Global Traffic Management division of Akamai, prosecutors 
alleged. Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai provides caching services for Web 
sites belonging to big-name companies like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and 
Apple Computers, among others.

This distributed denial-of-service attack, launched June 15, 2004, 
rendered many of Akamai's clients' Web sites temporarily inaccessible, 
according to the charges.

The charges of hacking, or "intentionally accessing a protected computer 
without authorization," carry potential penalties of up to two years' 
imprisonment and a $200,000 fine.

The case comes as botnet controllers are using increasingly 
sophisticated tactics. Major arrests were made over the summer, but 
attackers have kept up by writing new worms to maintain their zombie 
armies. In the meantime, Web browser manufacturers are striving to 
introduce more secure upgrades, like Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.

Copyright 1995-2006 CNET Networks, Inc.


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