Safety in numbers for security vendors

Four security companies are banding together to fight the threats posed by distributed denial of service attacks.

Network Associates' McAfee division, Arbor Networks, Asta Networks and Mazu Networks say they will work towards identifying when networks are under attack and whether systems are unknowingly participating in attacks against other sites.

According to the companies, the threats to network availability are escalating both in scope and complexity.

Ted Julian, chief strategist and co-founder of Arbor Networks, said: "Attacks are getting more dangerous as attackers find ways to use viruses in tandem with common software vulnerabilities to quickly amass their armies of zombies."

He confirmed that the company is contributing to the new initiative to solve emerging availability challenges for service providers and enterprises to counter attacks before service is degraded or denied.

Tools from Arbor, Asta and Mazu monitor traffic penetrating the network and detect the presence of anomalous activity prior to recommending a way out.

Joe Devich, president and chief executive at Asta, said that technology alone will not solve the problems caused by zombies. "We look forward to continuing our research in conjunction with McAfee and McAfee Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team (Avert) so that we can foil the plans that zombies have to wreak havoc on the internet."

According to recent Avert research, there are tens of thousands of zombies that have affected, or are currently affecting, systems worldwide.

Like the one installed by Code Red, zombies are worms that work their way into multiple machines and are programmed to attack one or more internet locations, and release a payload at a specific date and time.