Low Orbit Ion Cannon

Sometimes questionable tech blog Gizmodo described the Low Orbit Ion Cannon attack software in a feature today. The software was used by Anonymous to perform their Distributed Denial of Service attacks on those companies that had stopped supporting WikiLeaks.

The software, developed by the infamous image forum 4Chan, works essentially like any Denial of Service attack - it floods the target with dummy requests so that legitimate attempts to connect to the server are dropped. The software, which is cross-platform compatible, provides a user interface, simplifying the process of conducting a DoS attack to only needing a URL or IP address.

Another feature, called "Hivemind," allows users of computers running the program to turn over control of the program to a central user who can direct all the connected computers to attack a single site. This is essentially how a standard DDoS attack works - except that in this case, the owners of the computers on the botnet intentionally grant permission to use their computer in the attack.

The software is also fully open-source, which means that the generally technology-savvy users of the attack networks can review the code to know that the Hivemind feature does only what it says it's supposed to and nothing more. And, being open-source, it could be more difficult to eliminate the program from the Internet as anyone with the code can adapt and/or compile it.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5709630/what-is-loic