"This may have been the largest attack on the core of the Internet, but it didn't affect actual users," said Peter Salus, chief knowledge officer of Matrix NetSystems, an Austin, Texas-based group that monitors Internet traffic.

During the attack, referred to as a distributed denial-of-service exploit, up to 40 times the typical data flow was transmitted to each of the targeted domain name service (DNS) root servers. According to experts, hackers most likely concentrated the power of many smaller computers on each of the root servers to prevent them from functioning.

At the peak of the attack, the average operational level of the DNS network dropped to 94 percent from its normal level of nearly 100 percent, according to Matrix.

FBI Steps In

The attack's effect was neutralized when server administrators initiated defensive tactics, including turning off the attacked ports and using software filters, Salus told NewsFactor. As these defensive maneuvers were performed, the attacks suddenly stopped, though there was a brief additional attack on Tuesday.

"The FBI's cyber division has opened an investigation into the attack," David Wray, spokesperson for the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center, told NewsFactor.

"We became aware of the attack while it was still in progress Monday night," he said. Wray declined to provide any details about the investigation.

Source of Attack

Although the precise source of the incident is currently unknown, Salus said, the nodal points geographically close to the source of the disturbance could be determined.

In terms of who initiated the attack, he said it was most likely the result of "script kiddies (hackers) having a good time. I have a feeling that if this was done by Al Qaeda, that they would have done something more concerted and brought down all thirteen."

Although the nodes most aggressively attacked include servers run by the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Army, that is only significant if "you're the most dedicated conspiracy theorist," he added. One of the targeted servers, in Tokyo, is run by a nonprofit research organization.

Future Attacks

Salus said the hackers probably used a set of scripts freely available on the Internet, which they modified slightly to carry out the incident. (continued...)

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