Hackers slowed Twitter to a standstill early on Aug. 6, frustrating millions of users. For the culprits, all it took to snarl the popular social-networking site was one of the oldest tools in the Internet hacker handbook: the distributed denial-of-service attack (commonly shortened to DDoS), a method that has been used to crash some of the Web's largest sites, including Yahoo! and CNN.DDoS attacks are surprisingly low tech. Using a network of computers (dubbed zombies) controlled by a single master machine, the hacker tries to overwhelm a website's servers. It's a brute-force approach — the network of hacker-controlled computers floods the server with requests for data until the server overloads and comes crashing down. Graham Cluley, a computer security expert, likened the attack to "15 fat men trying to get through a revolving door at the same time." The attacks do no lasting damage — user data aren't compromised, and the site isn't down for long. Once the fat men stop rushing the doors, everything returns to normal.
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