Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The guest keynote speakers at technology conferences can vary in quality, but Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Canada (NYSE: HIT) made a smart choice by inviting Michael Calce, also known as Mafiaboy, to speak at their recent Information Forum event in Toronto. Calce gained notoriety as a teenage hacker from Montreal, who became the subject of an RCMP/FBI manhunt after a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in 2000. This attack brought down the websites of major companies like CNN, Amazon, Dell, and Yahoo. At the forum, he recounted his youthful indiscretions and delivered a stern warning about the dangers of over-sharing in the information age. Calce began his computing journey early, receiving his first white box PC at the age of six. He was engrossed by its capabilities, particularly playing games and storing data. His first programming venture was creating an application to track his hockey card collection, reflecting his passion for the Montreal Canadiens. By age nine, ...