Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are unfortunately par for the course on the Internet these days but when high-profile sites are targeted, the attacks are big news. Take for example last week’s DDoS attack on Twitter, which the microblogging site speculated was geopolitical in motivation.

Quick overview of DDoS

DDoS attacks are often caused by botnets flooding Web sites with requests thus bringing the site’s Web servers to their knees. A botnet is a collection of computers that have been compromised by viruses and worms so that they can be controlled by malicious individual(s). An example could be the collection of computers compromised by Conficker, however a Conficker botnet has yet to be leveraged to do harm.

In the case of Twitter, the irony is that it could have been the compromised computers of some of Twitter’s own users that caused the DDoS. Read more »

You know when something new in the tech world has become mainstream is when hackers begin targeting it. The recent Twitter worm created by 17-year-old Michael “Mikeyy” Mooney helped put Twitter on the map – although not in a way that Twitter would have liked – and exposed a cross-site scripting vulnerability in the microblogging site.

The self-propagating worm struck Easter weekend infecting some Twitter profiles and making them send messages to their contacts to check out Mikeyy’s StalkDaily.com Twitter-like site. (Read an interview with Mikeyy at the NetNewsDaily site.)

Last year, Facebook was hit by the Koobface worm, twice. Like the Twitter worm, Koobface generated messages to friends of infected users on the social networking site. The messages enticed readers to click on a site to watch a video but only after downloading the latest copy of Adobe Flash – yes, you can guess what happens next.

The Facebook and Twitter worms bring home the message that users need to be vigilant when clicking on links in emails, instant messages, Tweets, and so on, even if they appear to be sent by friends or respected brands.

The popularity of Twitter is also giving a boost to URL shortening services, such as the grandaddy TinyURL and the new kids on the block Bit.ly and TweaK. Since Twitter only allows users to update in no more than 140 characters, users are turning to URL shortening services when they want to include long URLs in their updates. But Mikeyy has shown that even updates apparently coming from your friends may not be kosher.

Some URL shortening services enable users to preview links before they click. TechRepublic has posted a useful guide detailing which services offer this feature and how they work.

We believe that you shouldn’t block social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as they can be beneficial to business, but you can teach your users how to practice safe social networking.

Facebook has details about how to deal with Koobface at its Facebook Security page, and Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder wrote about Mikeyy’s worm in his blog. Security researchers are advising people to disable JavaScript on their browsers to help protect against the Twitter worm. Here are some more security recommendations from Douglas Haider, a Computerworld columnist.

And you know that you can always use Scrutinizer to monitor traffic to these social networking sites.

Just to give you a little about me: I was never really a fan of social networking. I remember once creating a MySpace account, when it was cool to have one, but I got bored with all the upkeep that it required. It’s probably still there too…

My wife just joined the Facebook bandwagon and now she’s addicted to the point that she regularly maintains a profile for me. I think I’ve actually logged into my account maybe twice.

- For the record, if I get one more random quiz or one more request to be a part of someones pirate crew, I’m really gonna have an aneurysm.

But with the incredible growth within the social networking communities, this has created a new avenue for people to introduce their services and products and bring them to the fore. So I decided to be a Plixer PR person by creating a new Twitter account.

You can follow me if you want: @heycharlie <—- There’s my shameless attempt at advertising.

But going back to this blog.

Now that I’ve joined Twitter, I find myself amazed at who is using it. Here I thought that it was going to be full of teenagers talking about bands and bubblegum. To my surprise though, I found that there are tons of people in the IT field who use it on a regular basis.

I personally enjoy being able to help fellow techies battle issues with Cisco NetFlow or sFlow configurations. But there’s a lot of interesting stuff that flies around too; I hear opinions about products, I hear rants about how someone’s “X” network problem is ruining their life. I also hear raves about networking victories.

Maybe social networking is now more practical and useful than it used it be…

If you are not yet part of the Twitter community, hop on board, (not a Pirate reference) and feel free to follow me and a couple of my crazy IT friends. Maybe you’ll find it as useful as I have. If you already Tweet on a regular basis, feel free to leave a comment with your profile link, so the rest of us here at Plixer can share in your online shenanigans.

In 2002, Maine began providing laptops to all middle school students (see Maine Students Hit the IBooks). This month, the state extended the program to include all high school students. This raises a question that I have not yet seen being discussed in print – how will the students’ Internet usage during the school day be monitored?
Read more »

First it was YouTube, now it’s traffic from Facebook and Twitter that network managers are having to grapple with on their corporate nets. Even if you don’t participate on those sites yourself, you are bound to see your users accessing those places at some point. So what’s your company policy for those sites? Are you allowing them or blocking access because they – especially YouTube and other video broadcast sites – take up too much valuable bandwidth?

If the company policy is to block those sites your company could be losing out on using a valuable tool with which to communicate with your existing and potential customers. And for corporate collaboration, internal microblogging services such as Yammer, which focuses on the business market, is invaluable for getting groups updated without having to remember or type each member’s e-mail address.

For external communications, more and more organizations are using networks like Facebook to build community with their customers. If you’re a Facebook user, you can friend giants such as Ford Motor Company and Cisco and network with their friends. And for your career management LinkedIn is a great way to find contacts at old, existing and potential new employers.

However, such social networks aren’t without their risks. Analysts at Nemertes Research advise companies to “pro-actively develop and enforce policies for employee use of public social networking sites that enables legitimate business use while minimizing risk to intellectual property.” Nemertes says more than 54% of respondents to its unified communications and collaboration research said their organizations uses, is planning to use, or is evaluating social networks for internal and external collaboration.

So it sounds like traffic and bandwidth management is going to be key as organizations drive up the use of social networks. And that’s where Scrutinizer comes in handy with its ability to identify bandwith-hogging apps and more.

* If you’re on Twitter, you can follow your Plixer friends Michael Patterson, Scrutinizer product manager, and Tom Pore, Plixer Field Engineer, Marketing Executive, and Network Administrator.