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http://news.com.com/Internet+backbone+at+center+of+suspected+attack/2100-7349_3-6156944.html?tag=nefd.top

"Internet backbone at center of suspected attack"
By Joris Evers
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: February 6, 2007, 5:53 PM PST

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "There are signs that hackers attacked key parts of the backbone of the Internet on Tuesday, but no damage seems to have been done, experts said.

The attack appears to have focused on the Domain Name System, which maps text-based domain names, such as "News.com," to the actual numeric IP addresses of servers connected to the Internet, and vice versa. Several key DNS servers saw traffic spike in the early morning on Tuesday, several experts said--a sign of an attack.

"It is an unusual large amount of traffic that is hitting DNS servers," said John Crain, chief technical officer at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which operates one of the main so-called root DNS servers. "We see large attacks on a regular basis, but this hit quite a few servers, so it was fairly large."

Yet the DNS servers were able to withstand the onslaught, Crain added."