A packet monkey floods a website with data packets, causing a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. They use software scripts and have no real hacking experience. This behavior is frowned upon in the hacker community and is done for bragging rights. DoS attacks overwhelm web servers, causing them to slow down or crash. The online hacker community believes that packet monkeys give hackers a bad name.
A packet monkey is a derogatory term for a person who floods a website with packets of data, creating a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. In such an attack the web server slows down or even crashes, becoming unavailable for normal activities. While a DoS attack might seem difficult and even sophisticated to the casual computer user, a packet monkey uses software scripts written by others and has no real personal experience or understanding of hacking. Packet monkeys along with script kiddies are considered childish wannabes in the hacker community.
The Internet uses a standardized communication protocol so that any network or personal computer that complies with the protocol can participate in the global network. This protocol takes data and breaks it up into many smaller pieces called data packets. Sending small packets along various paths improves transfer speed. At the destination address the data packets are combined to form the complete original file. So you can think of online data as a puzzle that gets taken apart, sent to pieces, and put back together again.
In a DoS attack, a packet monkey uses a malicious script to direct a continuous stream of data packets to a web server. Not only is the web server overwhelmed by the sheer number of packets, but the reassembly process fails, causing errors after errors. Processing power decreases as reverbs increase exponentially, and in severe cases, the server crashes or goes offline. DoS attacks have been conducted on several well-known government websites and sites with costs estimated in the many millions or even billions of dollars.
If a package monkey gets no points in the hacker community by doing such a stunt, risking arrest and prosecution, why do it? These are commonly young people looking to brag among their peers. Using tools programmed by someone else to perform a DoS attack won’t impress hackers, but it might impress friends. Children could also use a DoS attack to build a reputation.
Unfortunately the pack monkeys and script kiddies aren’t going away anytime soon. Malicious scripts are available “in the wild” and there will always be a new younger generation willing to use them.
The online hacker community believes that package monkeys and script kiddies give hackers a bad name. A true hacker’s skill set will allow him to infiltrate a network, explore it, then slip away without a trace. While there are malicious hackers, many make good money working for institutions that pay them to find and fix vulnerabilities in their networks. A pack monkey, by contrast, engages in what amounts to “online arson” using a borrowed lighter.
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