Re: HSS Attack (?)

[Simple Nomad <thegnome () NMRC ORG>]

I guess there are several possibilities. First off, HSS could be refering
to a model of Sikorsky (sp) helicopter used a few decades ago by the
military. This would make sense in light of the "restoration took us
little longer than we initially expected" comment, but then again it is
unlikely that attack helicopters would simply target servers. HSS could
also be the Hardware Systems and Support group in the U.S. Army I believe,
possibly confused over the US WARE name via an Echelon algorithmic glitch
launching a pre-emptive strike, but again doubtful.

My guess is the HSS stands for High Speed Serial, and might refer to the
3Com Netbuilder router hardware that supports HSS v.35, in which case it
is probably a misuse of terms or perhaps an attack that affects Netbuilder
gear.

Of course it could be a combination of the first two items, though....

;-)

-         Simple Nomad          -     "No rest for the Wicca'd"     -
-      thegnome () nmrc org        -                                   -
-  thegnome () razor bindview com  - www.nmrc.org   razor.bindview.com -

On Sun, 5 Nov 2000, Michael W. Shaffer wrote:

> I have a friend whose personal site is hosted by a company called
> US Ware. He sent me an email the other day saying that they have
> been down for about a day two times in the last week. He sent me
> a link to their homepage where they have some cryptic message
> posted claiming that their outages were due to an 'HSS Attack'.
> Neither he nor I were able to find anything about what an HSS
> Attack might be on various security sites or search engines. My
> take was that they might just be making this up to cover up for
> some mistake they made that caused the outage. Has anyone on this
> list ever heard of an HSS Attack? Here's the text from their
> home page:
>
>
> http://www.usware.net/
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
> US WARE CUSTOMER ANNOUNCEMENT, November 4, 2000.
>
> We did have an HSS attack on the server 66.usware.net,
> IP address range 206.25.213.*. The appropriate authorities
> have been alerted and are working with us on determining
> who is responsible for the attack. HSS attack affected our
> hardware settings, and as they are very specific, the
> restoration took us little longer than we initially
> expected.
>
> Affected may have also been accounts using a nameserver
> that resolves to 209.25.213.66-69.
>
> It is our knowledge that the service is now operational
> for all the clients. Some of the other restoration works
> will continue in the beginning of the next week. We are
> very well aware of the affects the downtime had on your
> website, and our management will be in touch with all the
> clients who were affected. We thank you for your
> understanding and patience you have shown during the
> terrible moments in the past 24 hours.
>
> US WARE SUPPORT TEAM
> US WARE MANAGEMENT
>
> --
> Michael W. Shaffer                 email: shaffer () labs agilent com
> Research Computing Services        phone: +1 650.485.2955
> Agilent Laboratories, Palo Alto    fax:   +1 650.485.5568