Security News > 2010 > December > Size of DDoS group 'doesn't matter', security agency says
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/security-threats/2010/12/16/size-of-ddos-group-doesnt-matter-security-agency-says-40091193/ By Jack Clark @mappingbabel ZDNet UK 16 December, 2010 The number of people needed to launch a successful denial-of-service attack has been overestimated by the press, according to the European Network and Information Security Agency. Attacks such as those by pro-Wikileaks groups need significantly fewer participants than has been reported, the European Network and Information Security Agency (Enisa) said on Tuesday. Visa was taken down by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack from roughly 500 machines, Ulf Bergstrom, Enisa's spokesman, told ZDNet UK on Thursday. "An attack can be constituted by much fewer machines [than was thought], and that is quite concerning and quite an important point to make," Bergstrom said. DDoS attacks against Wikileaks, Visa, PayPal and various government sites all demonstrated that "size doesn't matter: the number of computers used in the attacks was relatively small (in the hundreds). Some press reports claim over six times the real number, which is indicative of the unreliability of information about botnets", Enisa wrote in a statement on Wednesday. [...] ___________________________________________________________ Tegatai Managed Colocation: Four Provider Blended Tier-1 Bandwidth, Fortinet Universal Threat Management, Natural Disaster Avoidance, Always-On Power Delivery Network, Cisco Switches, SAS 70 Type II Datacenter. Find peace of mind, Defend your Critical Infrastructure. http://www.tegataiphoenix.com/