Vulnerable Web applications can wreak havoc on a hosting provider's sanity, and its image. Botnet clients are not only for Windows anymore: They can also be small Perl scripts run via exploitable Web sites. That's right, all the evilness associated with botnet zombies can also apply to Linux-based Web servers. DDoS attacks and spam floods are commonly—and more frequently these days—seen originating from Web servers. An Internet site's reputation will quickly become tarnished when such evilness emanates from its IP address space. Remote sites will block e-mail, upstream service providers may degrade service levels, and generally, the Internet will prove about as hostile to the Web host as it is to dynamic IP addresses.

At ENP.

[ Read more ]