I'm glad you summed up the technical aspects of the conversation so far. A DDoS attack is a serious problem, no matter what form it takes. I have one question for you: do you really believe that there's no defense other than not waking the lion, that the battle is already lost? That doesn't paint a pretty picture to me. Are you basing this on published work or personal experience? Which I guess makes two questions, so I'll quit while I'm ahead. Martin Martin McKeay, CISSP, GSNA Cobia Product Evangelist StillSecure martin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 707-495-7926 http://www.cobiablog.com -- R. DuFrense wrote -- DDOS attacks work against resources, the tcp/ip stack <half opens (syn's) left hanging>, memory <cache of data in your syn-flood db>, drive space <system logs with overzealous logging of packet flow in limited space, or how much disk is devoted to a syn-flood db>, the size of your pipe... In any but the most simplistic low bandwith attacks there is little one can do in such cases but either ride out the storm or go upstream for help in resolution <mist often a block of the damaging traffic>. Even an semi-decent firewall defense against a simple low bandwith syn flood will need to be totally rework for defense in the case of a simple lowbandwidth ping flood, etc. And once the attack level is amplified above the flow capabilities of your pipe, all bets are off. In a serious flooding attack the firewall simply become a stopgate from preventing work on the local net from being affected. There have been and will continue to be some rather decently funded companies with some fairly decent pipes wiped out of business or their internet presence closed up due to some of these kinds of attacks over extended periods of time. Goverments across the globe have had internet services disrupted for extended periods. Microsoft has had to relocate servers to new net/ip addresses to divert the flow from such attacks and stay somewhat online... Best way to avoid such problems is to not get into a whose prick is bigger contest with some kid in IRC that controls a 10,000-100,000 or larger series of zombies in their botnet. It's the nature of the game, all in the design... Thanks, Ron DuFresne - -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ admin & senior security consultant: sysinfo.com http://sysinfo.com Key fingerprint = 9401 4B13 B918 164C 647A E838 B2DF AFCC 94B0 6629 ...We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love. -Tom Robbins <Still Life With Woodpecker> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGYcADst+vzJSwZikRApiLAJ444UDiM3HZnoNLO7ECHocT31r88wCeMhmS Zv2jS1v6fCcb3gLbx9+KqHQ= =iZ/G -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
