Internet users fret in frustration as DoS recurs
KARACHI- Internet users across the country fretted in frustration over intermittent disconnection of service for several hours when internet service providers came under another denial of service attack on Monday exposing authorities’ claim of having fixed the problem.
Internet service providers (ISPs) complained about the same problem they faced on April 4 when countrywide cyber system remained cut off from world for several hours.
“The problem occurred April 28, 2003 in the early hours and remained till 2.00 in the noon. It was the same denial of service (DoS) attack, which we experienced on April 4. It is too much now. PTCL should come up with concrete steps to eliminate it,” V A Abidi, Secretary ISPs Association of Pakistan (ISPAK) said.
About April 4 DoS attack, PTCL took the stand that it occurred due to damages to company’s fibre link with outside world, which the company said were subsequently repaired hence no question of the reoccurrence of problem. But ISPs have not stopped complaining of the problem since then.
PTCL’s countrywide internet backbone serving ISPs, corporate customers, call centres, software and IT companies has been facing DoS attacks since March 25, 2003, which cause packet loss to users, slow browsing speed and internet service.
The state-owned telecom giant claimed the company had chalked out a comprehensive strategy to resolve DoS problem. But, at the end of the day it turned out the words did not match actions.
“PTCL should make some investment in its efforts to overcome DoS problem. They must hire someone if they don’t have required expertise to tackle it,” Abidi said. But the PTCL insists it is quite aware of the situation and has all necessary expertise to handle it.
“PTCL has done its best to cope with the problem and deployed additional hardware and software in addition to providing additional links to the internet backbone,” Zahir Muhammad Khan, Member Operations PTCL told sources from Islamabad when reached over telephone.
He informed that another STM1 (155 Mbits) capacity cable had been added to the Pakistan Internet Exchange (PIE) besides ready availability of connectivity with Service Level Agreement from FLAG in major cities of the country. “The situation is getting better day by day. As per our observations and reports things are returning to normal at a quicker pace,” he observed.
Source: The News
Date:4/29/2003
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