Protecting yourself against mini-DDoS attacks

These are distributed denial of service attacks small enough to fly below the security radars of ISPs and law enforcement agencies, but potent enough to shut down cable or DSL modems connections. As evidenced by my inability to do anything about an attack on my connection (which I use to get my job done, but is shared with other family members for personal use), the perpetrators can wreak havoc without fear of reprisals.

Cable and DSL modem connections account for a growing contribution to the US economy. Just think of the telecommuters and small- to medium-size businesses that host through such connections and the number of e-commerce transactions that pass through them. To the extent that national security relies on the vitality of the economy, I consider the mDDoS a significant threat to our national security.

I received a tonne of replies to that column with all sorts of interesting suggestions on how to stop an mDDoS targeted specifically at my home office connection. The most common suggestion was to unplug my router and plug it back in again. The thinking behind this is that if my Linksys router is obtaining its IP address from my Internet service provider (ISP) each time it restarts, then restarting it will force my ISP to issue the router a new address, and the mDDoS (which was relying on the old IP address) would lose its way.