What is a cyber attack

Gamingphreek

Lifer
Mar 31, 2003
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0
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Apparently sourceforge got "attacked" recently

http://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-net-attack/

What exactly is a cyber attack and what is meant by "a targeted attack against sourceforge infrastructure"?

TIA

A cyber attack is just how it sounds. An attack focus on disrupting the service associated with a piece of IT Equipment.

Keeping in mind that a hack/attack/etc... has the purpose of disrupting the service of a given system, a targeted attack in general focuses on bringing down a specific aspect of that system. For instance, if one were looking to bring affect the stability of a Development Server such as the ones Sourceforge hosts, you would focus on services directly tied to development.

For instance, if it were me, I would, in some way, target:
1. The specific compilers on the machine
2. The debugger service
3. The Version Control Software
4. Scheduled backups and services
5. In the case of SF.net it is focused on hosting on the Web. Thus you could target the DNS Service, the Routers, the Domain Controllers.

There are any number of "targets" they could focus on.

-GP