A new kind of DDoS attack?

News.com's Joris Evers reports that a new twist on distributed denial-of-service attacks -- cybercriminals are using DNS servers -- could intensify threats to online business.

Using DNS servers to do their dirty work offers key benefits to attackers. It hides their systems, making it harder for the victim to find the original source of the attack. But, more importantly, reflecting an attack through a DNS server also allows the assault to be amplified, delivering a larger amount of malicious traffic to the target.

Earlier this year, VeriSign experienced attacks on its systems that were larger than anything it had ever seen before.

And, earlier this week, Sun announced that Sun Grid, the company's publicly available computing service, was hit by a DDoS network attack on its inaugural day. "Or was it?" wonders Phil Wainewright.