They may be off the news radar at the moment, but botnets are still a serious bugbear for computer security professionals – it’s hard work trying to defeat something that fights back, after all. [image by Rodrigo Senna]
So here’s a new idea from the University of Washington – why not fight fire with fire, and build a white hat botnet to defend against the DDoS attacks af the black hat botnets?
“Their system, called Phalanx, uses its own large network of computers to shield the protected server. Instead of the server being accessed directly, all information must pass through the swarm of “mailbox” computers.
The many mailboxes do not simply relay information to the server like a funnel – they only pass on information when the server requests it. That allows the server to work at its own pace, without being swamped.”
Sounds like a good plan. It’s beyond my knowledge levels, but the guys at Techdirt seem to think it’s a creative approach.
As a recent convert to Linux, this is the part where I smugly remind everyone that if certain commercially ubiquitous operating systems weren’t so riddled with security flaws, botnets wouldn’t be a problem anyway …
In the context of the following comment – “As a recent convert to Linux, this is the part where I smugly remind everyone that if certain commercially ubiquitous operating systems weren’t so riddled with security flaws, botnets wouldn’t be a problem anyway…” – How about you get an enterprise class job where you have a responsibility to manage to standards, as opposed to floating fanboyish opinions? In the real world not everyone likes your favorite flavour of anything, and your propensity for technical religiosity just underlines the fact that you are likely not responsible in a business relevant environment in a technical or fiscal way.
Right. Another name for it is Torrent. Both my service provider (Comcast) and a lot of government and quasi-government organizations from Hollywood are busy trying to make sure we can’t do that!
@davenix – touché. I’m guessing the intended humour didn’t come through there, or you weren’t in the mood for it; possibly both. In either case, my apologies.
@docduke – like I say, it’s a bit beyond my grasp, but it seems a little different to Torrenting from what I can tell.
Wow, Davenix, you need a little caffeine or something. Find your own Internet to comment on, mkay?