Security experts say site managers and enterprise e-commerce managers can take many steps to ward off or minimize the effects of these attacks. But to choke them off at the source and then identify the perpetrators "would take . . .
Security experts say site managers and enterprise e-commerce managers can take many steps to ward off or minimize the effects of these attacks. But to choke them off at the source and then identify the perpetrators "would take a level of cooperation among Internet service providers [ISPs] that doesn't exist today," says Gorka Sadowski, director of emerging technology at firewall maker NetScreen Technologies.

Indeed, the loosely administered and open nature of the Internet practically guarantees attacks will continue and perhaps move beyond the disruptive denial-of-service attack of the sort launched upon Microsoft. Denial-of-service attacks, which bombard a target with hundreds of thousands or millions of false messages, disrupt Web site operations or cause delays in customer access. Worse may be yet to come.

"What causes me to lose sleep," Sadowski says, "is the thought that someone has penetrated my systems without leaving a trace. He knows my system and, after six months of observation, he's started relieving six-figure accounts of small amounts of money."

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