[plug] UNIX - RISKS

[Paul Wilson]

> Is this a Unix issue or is it a web-server issue?  How is this any
> different using alternative OS's to Un*x?  Sounds like it is a problem
> with providing any internet live server such as a web-server. 
> Presumably though there would be ways of solving the problem... perhaps
> if you've identified where the packets causing the DoS are coming from,
> simply reject all packets from that IP/Domain.  you could do this using
> a packet sniffer.

I agree on both counts. NT is very unlikely to fare better than any of the
UNIXen out there -- perhaps worse because of its black box nature (but the
same could be argued against commercial UNIX too). The best solution to
this type of DoS attack is a temporary change to the ruleset for the local
firewall, I know little of the detail for the situation that I mentioned,
so I dunno if that was done, or why there was such a delay (if, in fact,
there was - newspapers !)

Paul