Spamhaus attack highlights vulnerabilities of networks: Akamai

The recent Spamhuas DDoS incident highlights the fragility of the Internet and many of the core services that World Wide Web is built on, says John Ellis, Enterprise Security Director, Asia Pacific and Japan, Akamai.

How cyber attack used Internet to clog traffic

 

John Ellis points out that the Internet is an inter-network of separately managed networks, that are connected together through a series of hierarchal relationships between network providers. Those who attacked Spamhaus were smart in understanding these relationships and after initial efforts to disrupt the availability of the Spamhuas website failed, targeted the upstream network providers. These attacks were designed to 'suffocate' where many of the networks meet at what are known as Internet Exchanges (IXs).

Internet users caught in the corssfire

 

"By targeting these Internet Exchanges (Ixs), the Spamhaus attackers were able to create significant amount of congestion at key points of the Internet. This resulted in significant portions, and users of the internet experiencing performance issues. Whilst, the Internet Exchanges were able to reroute around these congestion points, the attack further highlighted additional vulnerabilities in design and implementations of networks on the internet."