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Home Page  Articles Thwarting Internet Threats
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Thwarting Internet Threats |
I have 6 servers I maintain to keep the hundreds of web sites we manage
that have to be running problem free 24/7. It is a constant battle
against hackers (which we've been hacker free for several years) and
DOS (Denial Of Service) attacks which is the "hot" item these days.
Read about the threats and what we do to protect your web site and email from attacks.
Anyone with a trojan horse file and email can launch one at will
without being detected until the damage is done then they move on to
another network.
The challenge comes on two fronts;
(1) Hackers use surrogates around the globe to manually attack message boards, guestbooks and blogs.
(2) They use trojan horse software to infect thousands sometimes hundreds of thousands of computers and unbeknownst to the computer owner they send spam and hit the above message centers relentlessly.
I once tried to catalog the IP addresses of anyone scanning our servers or trying to post to guestbooks and I quit when it hit 3,000 in a 48 hour period. By that calculation in the 10 years we've been in business we've been scanned or attacked over 130 million times. We've had only a handful of planned, and unplanned, outages during that time lasting from 10 minutes to several hours. That's a tough record to beat.
You don't hear about the other ISPs problems because they will never tell you the cause. It just magically starts working again. Through friends and clients I monitor 10 of the biggest host providers and I can say unequivocally that they all are battling the same issues.
There are subscription sites that monitor the big ISPs which shows the maintenance outages, unplanned outages, network sharing contract disputes, etc. There is so much that goes on behind the public's eyes and ears that it boggles the mind and is a full-time job for me trying to counteract the many different attackers out there.
By way of example, the retail and corporate security sectors dominated by companies like Norton, McAfee and others is growing exponentially and regularly makes the evening news about another rogue hacker launching a world-wide attack. There are a dozen magazines and books devoted just to the job of securing computers and networks.
Here's what we do to protect you:
- Use advanced network monitoring tools to track and block offenders.
- Use sound server administration procedures.
- Stay up to date on the latest threats and their counter-measures.
- Monitor large ISPs networks and news.
- Scan the millions of lines in our log files looking for patterns of behaviour.
- Educate our clients on how they can avoid unknowingly introducing or propogating 3rd party attacks.
- Propietary processes and software to monitor and block offenders.
- Having multiple backups and redundant systems.
- Recovery procedures in-place that can be activated immediately upon being needed.
- Notify an offenders ISP ordering them to stop abusive behaviour.
The whole ISP industry does the best we can do to counteract these threats. When I detect a problem I research it and take whatever steps I can to stop it. Short of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on network sniffers and hardware filters I feel I'm doing everything possible to avoid problems and in the rare case an attack is semi-successful to discover and fix the problem as quickly as possible and take the steps necessary to avoid it in the future.
This article may not be copied or reproduced in whole or in part
without the express written permission of Kawika Ohumukini. You can
contact Kawika at
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