[ISN] Packet analysis beats off hackers

[InfoSec News]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27026

By Tony Dennis
18 October 2005

ALTHOUGH THEY don't like to admit it, online gambling companies are
frequently the victims of denial of service attacks. And, since they
can lose significant amounts of revenue during such events, this opens
them up to blackmail from hackers.

Naturally, such companies have deployed state-of-the-art firewalls and
intrusion protection systems. However, one such operator - Bet365 -
has found a new weapon. Namely real-time packet analysis.

The technology has been developed to enable the typical corporate
network management to discover why a LAN is slowing down and who or
what is causing it.

Bet386 has acquired this technology from network analysis specialists,
WildPackets. The software was originally developed for Mac based
networks.

The main point about Wildpackets' Omni software is that it looks
directly at the actual data rather than merely counting the packets.

So, if a server suddenly experiences a sudden surge in traffic, Omni
can pinpoint exactly where it is coming from and block the offending
user/port.

It's not exactly the kind of application Wildpackets had in mind but
at least it now has a very happy customer. µ