By Joey Gardiner, 16 November 2000 16:00
NEWS Nick Lockett, ecommerce lawyer at Sidley & Austin, said that sites which were used by hackers to launch distributed denial of service (DoS) attacks could be liable for large compensation claims. Lockett said: "There is a distinct probability that if your site has been hijacked for a denial of service attack, then you could be liable for damages. I would definitely advise clients they have grounds to sue." The warnings follow an appeal from Michael Vatis, director of the National Infrastructure Protection Centre (NIPC) at the FBI, for dot-coms to increase security levels on the web. Speaking exclusively to silicon.com, in this week's Agenda Setters programme, Vatis said: "The number one priority is for industry to raise the level of security - the only way to prevent these crimes is to raise security." The NIPC heads up the FBI's internet crime investigations and was responsible for tracking down MafiaBoy, the Canadian teenager responsible for DoS attacks in February, who brought down sites including Amazon, CNN, Ebay and Yahoo!, Hackers brought the sites down by overloading their systems with traffic bounced off third party servers. Now lawyers say the third parties used could be liable for the damage because they were negligent in doing all they could to avoid being used in a DoS attack. Lockett added: "Just imagine the damages for bringing Amazon down for five or six hours." He was supported by ecommerce lawyer Simon Stokes, partner at law firm Tarlo Lyons, who said: "This is certainly something I would advise those running websites be aware of. In the US, where they have a much more litigious culture, you can rule nothing out."
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