Cert Warns of New DDoS Tool - Industry Trend or Event

ENT, May 24, 2000

Cert, the computer security research unit at Carnegie Mellon University (www.cmu.edu), reported a new tool that is capable of being used for creating distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

The script, called "mstream" on the Internet, consists of two binaries: an agent and a handler. The agent sits on a compromised host machine. When activated, it sends a stream of garbage pings to a prespecified IP address. The handler manages the agents, and gives instructions to the agents when a DDoS attack is desired.

The agent must be installed in the root directory of the host machine, but the handler can reside in any user directory. This can make tracking malicious users more difficult once the attack is launched.

Cert (www.cert.org) considers mstream capable of launching severe DDoS attacks like the ones that crippled and E-Trade. There is no additional functionality, however, that makes mstream more dangerous than trinoo or tfn.

As with most DDoS tools, the best action users can take is to scan their machines for the presence of the agent on their networks and ensure that their machines are not used as hosts.