Distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks are potent weapons in the computer hacker's arsenal. They consist of large-scale, coordinated attacks on the availability of Internet services and resources that are launched indirectly via many compromised computers (often called “secondary victims”). A typical DDoS attack consists of master, slave and victim, with the master being the attacker, the slave being the compromised system and the victim being the target site. Once the master sends out a specific command to the multiple slave systems, the attack is launched and the victim site is flooded with requests that soon overload the victim server, bringing it down. Experts estimate that in the past year alone, such DDOS attacks have resulted in millions of dollars in lost productivity and revenue.

According to Hang Chau, a senior network/system administrator at Tera Technology, sites can prevent such attacks by being vigilant and following what he terms “RUNSAFE” guidelines. RUNSAFE consists of the following seven steps:

* Refuse to run unknown programs;

* Update computers regularly;

* Nullify unneeded risks;

* Safeguard identities and passwords;

* Assure sufficient resources for proper system care;

* Face insecurity head-on;

* Everybody needs to do their part. In other words, everyone from the system administrator on down needs to be aware of the risks and follow security guidelines.

In addition, sites should download and run test programs from the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) to test for the most common DDoS attack tools on your Web site server configuration.