FYI: Edupage excerpt of a WSJ article. - paul
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 17:18:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Edupage Editors <educom@elanor.oit.unc.edu> To: "EDUCOM Edupage Mailing List" <edupage@elanor.oit.unc.edu> Subject: Edupage, 12 September 1996
CRACKER ATTACK PARALYZES PANIX Repeated attacks by a computer cracker have virtually shut down New York's Public Access Networks Corp., better known as Panix. The attacks have overwhelmed the computers' capacity to respond to requests for an "electronic handshake" by sending as many as 150 bogus requests a second. "This is the first major attack of a kind that I believe to be the final Internet security problem," says a Lucent Technologies Internet security expert, who says he "has been waiting" for just such an event. Internet computers have no quick way of distinguishing these bogus requests from real ones, and even when security software is upgraded to ease the problem, the crackers could respond with even more intense assaults. "There's going to be the usual arms race," predicts the Lucent security expert, between improved security measures and crackers' ability to disable them. (Wall Street Journal 12 Sep B1)