Ataques em 13 computadores que controlam o tráfego de dados na rede é o maior desde 2002.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the
13 computers that help manage global computer traffic Tuesday in one
of the most significant attacks against the Internet since 2002.
Experts said the unusually powerful attacks lasted for hours but
passed largely unnoticed by most computer users, a testament to the
resiliency of the Internet.
Behind the scenes, computer scientists worldwide raced to cope with
enormous volumes of data that threatened to saturate some of the
Internet’s most vital pipelines.
Experts said the hackers appeared to disguise their origin, but vast
amounts of rogue data in the attacks were traced to South Korea.
The attacks appeared to target UltraDNS, the company that operates
servers managing traffic for Web sites ending in “org” and some other
suffixes, experts said. Company officials did not immediately return
telephone calls from The Associated Press.
Among the targeted “root” servers that manage global Internet traffic
were ones operated by the Defense Department and the Internet’s
primary oversight body.
“There was what appears to be some form of attack during the night
hours here in California and into the morning,” said John Crain, chief
technical officer for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers. He said the attack was continuing and so was the hunt for its
origin.
“I don’t think anybody has the full picture,” Crain said. “We’re
looking at the data.”
Crain said Tuesday’s attack was less serious than attacks against the
same 13 “root” servers in October 2002 because technology innovations
in recent years have increasingly distributed their workloads to other
computers around the globe.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.