Methods and apparatus for delivering control messages during a malicious attack in one or more packet networks

An article of manufacture for defending against unwanted traffic by a target victim, the target victim having one or more destination addresses, comprising a non-transitory machine readable recording medium containing one or more programs which when executed implement the steps of:

• determining that unwanted traffic is received by said target victim based on an analysis of packets received from one or more source IP addresses;
• and
• transmitting a denunciation message to a central filter associated with a service provider, said denunciation message identifying a source address of at least one source computing device whose transmission of packets to said target victim are specified in said denunciation message to be one or more of limited, dropped and allowed and wherein said denunciation message is transmitted using a Denunciation Protocol that does not require a substantially immediate acknowledgement from said central filter, wherein said Denunciation Protocol comprises at least two communication channels, wherein said at least two communication channels comprise a first, substantially secure communication channel and a second communication channel in which the denunciation message is transmitted, wherein the second channel of the Denunciation Protocol does not require said substantially immediate acknowledgement from said central filter.