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Could the Internet Be Taken Down In 30 Minutes?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the millions-of-voices-suddenly-cried-out-in-terror dept.

GhostX9 writes "Tom's Hardware recently interviewed Dino A. Dai Zovi, a former member of Sandia National Labs' IDART (the guys who test the security of national agencies). Although most of the interview is focused on personal computer security, they asked him about L0pht's claim in 1998 if the Internet could still be taken down in 30 minutes given the advances on both the security and threat sides. He said that the risk was still true."

2 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. Yes by 2.7182 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    By a nuclear war for example.

  2. Internet Backbone DDOS in 2002 by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In 2002 4 or 5 of the 13 root servers were big news ... although we've come a long way since then, I think the integrity of the internet still depends on these things.

    Every so often we get reports that the internet is a rickety old jalopy on it's last leg.

    Given this impression and add to it the fact that the botnets seem to grow in tandem with the internet, I wouldn't be surprised to see an attack take her down in 30 minutes although I'm no expert. I think 30 minutes is a generous amount of time if one of the larger botnets turned its attention on the root servers for a DDOS attack. You'd have some fail overs and some courageous engineer might save the day but I'd put my money on the bad guys.

    I would be surprised if it was down for more than 24 hours following that though.

    --
    My work here is dung.