Er is ook goed nieuws;
Botmasters Take Heed – You Are Being Put On Notice
By Robin Laudanski
October 1, 2007
All too often victims of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are left
feeling let down and with a sense that the system fails. CastleCops is no
exception. Recently we have seen many sites come under attack and
some have even had to close up shop, not surprising when you start to
look at the bandwidth costs involved in a DDoS. Last February CastleCops,
more specifically PIRT was targeted by a DDoS for something we didn’t do.
Paul and I were expecting to be celebrating Valentine’s Day, instead we
found ourselves fighting against a DDoS which at its peak reached 969
Mbps we were forced to change our hosting location, and were extremely
thankful to our previous host, ApplicationX for not charging us 95th
percentile billing. If we had been charged a 95th percentile rate, it would
have been the end of this site. DDoS attacks are not just attacks against a
single site, when one site is attacked everyone on that network can
become a victim, the people trying to get to the sites on the network are
affected, the upstream providers are affected and the people who own the
machines which make up the Botnet are also affected. Today the system
didn’t fail.
Today the arrest and indictment of Greg King, 21, of Fairfield California was
announced. In the Indictment, the US Attorneys Office is alleging Greg King
aka SilenZ was responsible for the DDoS of CastleCops last February.
According to the Press Release he faces a maximum sentence of ten
years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.
There is no “good” reason for a DDoS. Targeting an individual or an online
presence can and does have far reaching effects. It is excellent to see the
US Attorneys Office taking an active stance with computer crime. Hopefully
this is the beginning of a new trend where computer crimes are
prosecuted with vigor which would diminish the feeling that the system
fails. I have to tip my hat to Law Enforcement and the US Attorneys Office
on this. We never expected to see any kind of prosecution so quickly.
Once we know the verdict we will post a follow up. For now it will stand as a
beacon showing the system does work. Regardless of the outcome of this
trial it is a win for the good guys, it is hope for the victims of DDoS and it
should serve as a warning for Computer criminals everywhere. No longer
is computer crime going to go unpunished, no longer are the victims of
these crimes going to be nameless and faceless. We will not be silenced
and neither should anyone else, we have opened a DDoS forum to try to
help Webmasters when they have been targeted.
http://www.castlecops.com/a6833-Botmasters_Take_Heed_._You_Are_Being_Put_On_Notice.html