By Graham K. Rogers

With a greater risk of attack from denial of service (DOS) attacks it is a possibility that university networks could be used as unwitting partners in the execution of such an attack. Zeljka Zorz, writing on H-Net Security outlines the dangers in which a consolidated attack could be launched on a third party using institutional servers.

An example of such an attack is outlined in the article: several university servers were used to produce a combined attack of some 300 gigabits per second which severely affected the intended victim of the attack as well as affecting other providers that tried to help.

Quoting Doug Pearson, Technical Director at REN-ISAC (who provides a number of recommendations), the article concludes, "Too many higher education institutions contribute to this known and avoidable problem."

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.