Flawed Routers Flood University of Wisconsin Internet Time Server (2003)
This article details a 2003 incident where a design flaw in Netgear residential routers caused a massive, unintentional DDoS attack on a University of Wisconsin NTP server. It outlines the university's collaborative efforts with the manufacturer to resolve the issue through firmware updates and public disclosure.
Why it matters
It serves as a foundational case study in cybersecurity regarding how non-malicious, poorly designed consumer hardware can cause significant global network infrastructure failures.
ABSTRACT In May 2003, the University of Wisconsin - Madison found that it was the recipient of a continuous large scale flood of inbound Internet traffic destined for one of the campus' public Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers. The flood traffic rate was hundreds-of-thousands of packets-per-second, and hundreds of megabits-per-second. Subsequently, we have determined the sources of this flooding to be literally hundreds of thousands of real Internet hosts throughout the world. However, rather than having originated as a malicious distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, the root cause is actually a serious flaw in the design of hundreds of thousands of one vendor's low-cost Internet products targeted for residential use. The unexpected behavior of these products presents a significant operational problem for UW-Madison for years to come. This document includes the initial public disclosure of details of these products' serious design flaw.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in