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DDoS attacks 'no longer paying off'

Economics are playing a part in the decline of denial-of-service attacks, according to a Symantec security expert.

In the second half of 2006, Symantec noted a sharp decline in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, where a network of remote-controlled bots - usually end-user machines infected with malicious software - overloads a target's system and takes it offline.

Part of the decline is due to the fact that such attacks simply aren't paying off for the attackers, Symantec security engineer Yazan Gable said in a note on the company's website.

"Although there are likely a number of factors at play here, I think there is one primary factor: denial of service extortion attacks are no longer profitable," Gable wrote.

DDoS attacks first started to skyrocket in the second half of 2005, according to Symantec's twice-yearly Threat Report, rising 51 percent to an average of 1,402 attacks per day.

View: Tech World

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