nanog mailing list archives

Re: Impending (mydoom) DOS attack


From: "Laurence F. Sheldon, Jr." <larrysheldon () cox net>
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 17:48:13 -0600




I believe there is major and perhaps fatal flaw in this analysis.

Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu wrote:

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 18:24:42 GMT, "Stephen J. Wilcox" said:
I'm not sure what the point of the DoS is if its intended to be a spam engine,
that would have the effect of helping to identify and hence clean up the
infections.

Ahh.. you didn't take the time to think it through. ;)

Consider - the perpetrator releases a *very* noisy worm with a DDoS engine
on it (admittedly buggy).  Then you go on vacation someplace warm and sunny,
where visually attractive people of your preferred gender are walking around
wearing a lot more than you need to wear where you were...
                ^^^^

The analysis works if that was the word "less".


Computers catch it.  Computers spew it.  Computers do their DDoS tapdance.
Hopefully users and ISP staff notice and take action.

Then 3 weeks later, you come back, tanned and rested - and run another
scan.  If you find your spam backdoor on port 3127 *still* open on a
machine, you can be fairly sure you can spam away with impunity - if the
user and their ISP didn't notice the box spewing mail the FIRST time, they
won't notice the second time.....

I doubt that the length of 3 is important.  Based on my past
experience "Then 3 weeks later" can be replaced by "Some time later when
the cold is gone".


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