One for the Networking Nerds
Discussion
I was going to treat myself to a new Cisco personal firewall for home, but after reading that, I see no point. If someone has decided to attack you, unless you have spent half a million dollars on hardware protection, there's bugger all you can do to stop it, so the report implies 
Rumour has it that Microsofts' response in helping the shakedown was by releasing their antispyware program to try and remove the bots from joe publics' PC. There are millions of PC's already infected, just sitting there biding their time waiting for the command to attack.
I still cannot get my head around the figures for network traffic - 100mb and upwards in floods. Just how many PC's are attacking at once?? Mental.
It's about time Arpanet/TCPIP had a shakedown. 50 odd years on and still the basis for the worlds networking protocol.
Rumour has it that Microsofts' response in helping the shakedown was by releasing their antispyware program to try and remove the bots from joe publics' PC. There are millions of PC's already infected, just sitting there biding their time waiting for the command to attack.
I still cannot get my head around the figures for network traffic - 100mb and upwards in floods. Just how many PC's are attacking at once?? Mental.
It's about time Arpanet/TCPIP had a shakedown. 50 odd years on and still the basis for the worlds networking protocol.
Thanks for that Jamie, thats a interesting article.
I like reading the stuff on SecurityFocus as well.
I like reading the stuff on SecurityFocus as well.
Anything with an IP address is a potential target, and if the attacker is sufficiently motivated, nothing is really going to stop them.
The best approach is to make the difficulty of sucessfully attacking your equipment more difficult than your attacker is prepared to go to.
If you are a home user, your likely attacker is a script kiddy somewhere, as you are unlikely to provide much of an incentive, or reward to anything more than that. Hence, don't be too scared by the reports stating that half a million pounds is still not enough. Of course its not if you're a sufficiently interesteding target, but a few quidsworth will more than enough for your average home user...
Hope this helps.
The best approach is to make the difficulty of sucessfully attacking your equipment more difficult than your attacker is prepared to go to.
If you are a home user, your likely attacker is a script kiddy somewhere, as you are unlikely to provide much of an incentive, or reward to anything more than that. Hence, don't be too scared by the reports stating that half a million pounds is still not enough. Of course its not if you're a sufficiently interesteding target, but a few quidsworth will more than enough for your average home user...
Hope this helps.
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