"The first denial-of-service attack hit the next morning, a Thursday, and crashed the company's application server. Somebody sitting at a computer in a downtown Manhattan Kinko's had gained access to ITTI's server using an internal development password. The server was brought back online, only to be hit again two minutes later, says Goldberg. Passwords were changed, and development systems were air-gapped - physically disconnected - from the Internet. But the attacks continued through the weekend.
The situation soon became critical. "If the attacks continued to go on, we would go out of business," Goldberg says. He called in a security consulting firm and the Secret Service.
The last attack, which occurred Monday morning, hit as federal authorities were installing monitoring equipment on ITTI's networks. Authorities traced the attacker to a computer at Queens College in Flushing, N.Y., where one of the former employees was a student. Witnesses placed the individual at the specific computer at the precise time of the attack. Within an hour, the Secret Service officials had their man. No evidence or charges were brought against the other former employee."
News: General
