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Gambling Sites Battle DDoS Attacks

Posted by michael on from the aces-over-eights dept.

the-dark-kangaroo writes "Gambling sites are fighting back against extortion from hackers using Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. According to the report released by the BBC many of these attacks are coming from infected home PCs which have succumbed to a worm or virus. The gambling sites are bringing in reinforcements: Pipex, Cisco and security firm Energis are creating 'intelligent' traffic monitoring systems to help stop these attacks."

9 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. I try and try.. by XaXXon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But I just can't feel too sorry for them.

    I mean, I know it's wrong, but when you get into that business I'm sure this isn't really that uncommon. Gambling is a shady 'business' in the first place, so if you have to deal with other shady people to keep it going, then them's the breaks, buddy.

    1. Re:I try and try.. by pk2000 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The most overlooked form of gambling is insurance. You place a bet that your house will catch fire. If it doesn't then you loose your bet. If it does you win!! But your winnings are actually less than the value of the damage.

  2. Legal issues? by britneys+9th+husband · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ok, I'm not sure about those other companies that were mentioned, but Cisco is a U.S. company. And internet gambling is illegal in the United States. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't give a shit whether people gamble on the internet, and I see the anti-internet-gambling laws as having as much to do with protecting monopolies as anything else.

    Now that I've said that, how is this not a legal issue for Cisco? Surely the FBI, DEA, and assorted other federal agencies would be all over Cisco if they were helping Colombian drug cartels in any way whatsoever. How do they "get away" with it? Aren't they essentially aiding and abetting what in the U.S. is considered a criminal enterprise? I mean, as an individual I can go place bets at some offshore casino and fly under the radar, but a big company like Cisco is going to have a hard time doing that, especially if their help is on the front page of Slashdot and other news sources.

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  3. NAT by Underholdning · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder if the ISP's will continue selling solutions where the PC is connected directly to the internet. We've all seen the tests. It takes less than 5 minutes for a Windows PC to be taken over (or 0wned as they say). But - a simple router with NAT helps immensly. Would it help if the ISP's were forced to only sell internet access with at least a router?

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    1. Re:NAT by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 3, Interesting
      What would really help is Microsoft being forced to sell software that is reasonably fit for the purpose for which it is sold. I seem to recall they mention that Windows is meant for use with the internet - that surely implies that it ought not to be 0wned in 5 minutes.

      In the UK, and most probably Europe, it is a very serious offence to sell goods unfit for the purpose for which they are advertised.

      Lock them up and throw away the key. Mwa, ha, ha haaar!

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  4. Prevention? by peasleer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know Linux based servers have the ability to limit the amount of damage a DOS/DDOS can do. I do it with my server: run daemons as their own user and limit the amount of resources they can use, both CPU and memory. That way, the system may get bogged down, but will never suffer a complete failure from a DOS attack. I am curious as to why some larger sites like the gambling networks aren't using such preventative measures. Are they not effective against larger attacks?

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  5. Legality and Cause by robdavy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Firstly, the legality issue is weird to me. I come from the UK were licensed gambling (be it online or in real life) is perfectly legal. I find it rather ammusing that a whole State would ban something like gambling. Anyway, people seem to think that the reason a site dies during a DDoS attack is CPU usage. It's not. It's not related to the servers at all (at least not in the case of big attacks) We were recently hit by a DDoS attack (don't ask) and we were having our 100mb uplink saturated. That's where the problem occured. Our 13 machines could cope with the requests - the pipe couldn't. Even if we went to a Gig uplink (which was considered), they'd simply saturate that. A few hundred compromised machines on DSL/Cable can easily do that. Scary stuff I must admit.

  6. Alternative Theory by Salamander · · Score: 5, Interesting

    On my website 90% of the comment spam was from online poker sites. That added up to hundreds of messages per day that I had to delete, and I know many others had similar experiences. I know I was thinking that they deserve a lesson, and maybe some folks decided to teach them one. While I don't necessarily approve of the method, I fully understand the impulse. Many online gambling sites are run by pricks; I won't shed a tear for them and their self-inflicted troubles any more than I would for the RIAA/MPAA.

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  7. Addiction by nuggz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't care about addictions.
    It just means the affected person must put out even more effort to overcome it.

    Just because some people are sex addicts doesn't mean I shouldn't be allowed to sleep with my wife. (or yours for that matter)