COMPUTERS/Y2K: DENIAL OF SERVICE WARNING:

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Various sources have been sending notes of caution to ERRI about a new version of a malicious program called the "Tribe Flood Network" or "TFN2K". It is said to be more powerful and harder to detect than an earlier version, according to experts. An updated sister program, called "Trinoo," is also allegedly due to be released next week.

According to Stephen Shankland, Staff Writer at CNET's News.com., the programs "secretly embed software into hundreds of computers. Then, at a selected time, a command is issued that prompts the infected computers to swamp a target Web site or server with messages in an attack called a denial of service." The program reportedly doesn't internally damage the "infected" computer, but the sudden and sustained flood of messages typically overloads the target system and causes it to shutdown.

Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) is quoted as saying of the new threat, "It is possible that intrusion attempts, viruses and other attacks will be focused on the time around 01 January 2000 under cover of Y2K incidents." It is believed by ERRI analysts that "Trinoo" and the modified version of the Tribe Flood Network called "TFN2K" may be part of the arsenal used by "crackers" during the holiday period.

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), December 27, 1999


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