Astalavista Newsletter - Attack the Attackers!

[MO!]

Spotted this in the latest astalavista newsletter.

[ A NEW SECURITY PRODUCT ATTACKS THE ATTACKERS ]

Symbiot, a Texas-based security company, plans to release a corporate defense system that fights back against distributed denial-of-service and hacker attacks by launching counterstrikes. Symbiot, located in Austin, said it bases its theory on the military doctrine of "necessity and proportionality," which means that the response to an attack is proportionate to the attack's ferocity.

More information is available at:

http://news.com.com/2100-7349_3-5172032.html
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39148215,00.htm

Astalavista's comments:

Attractive to be aware of military theory, but as far as DDoS attacks are concerned, this is probably the worst thing you could do since it will expand the impact of the DDoS attack by attacking the hacker's anonymous hosts, which are unaware home and enterprise users all over the world.
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I like the way they compare it to military thinking.

"by attacking the hacker's anonymous hosts, which are unaware home and enterprise users all over the world."

Innocent normal people caught in the line of fire when going for an attacker.

Sound Familiar???

 

[julian2002]

hmmm,
ddos attacks are a pita when you're trying to get a patch or something off the microshite site and everything stops because some 13 yr old swede thinks it's a good idea to tie up their bandwidth. personally i think that the symbiote system mentioned is a reasonable idea certainly if you are using the internet without a firewall and virus checker then it's a bit like going to africa and having sex without a condom i.e. a very stupid thing to do.
i think that it would be better if the system caused a pop up explaining that your pc was being used to attack other systems and that you should get a firewall if your service was to be resumed. isp's should also be roped in to watch out for pc's that are used in ddos attacks and then warn their users.
cheers


julian

 

[lhatkins]

Next stage up from that will be, they will invent a system that not only attacks back but lauches a heat seeking missle towards your computer!

Good idea though, like their thinking, why should we let hackets, virus programmers and such like scum get away with the chaos they cause. I'd string them up if I ever found them.