If you have ever tried to access a website but received no response or the website is unavailable, it may be that the servers are overloaded. Your network might seem slow and not allow you to connect to the internet. These might be temporary interruptions that will soon be fixed. You might also find that the website you were trying to visit or your network has been affected by a distributed denial-of-service attack, better known simply as DDoS.
DDoS attacks are not the same thing as servers overloaded due to a temporary spike of traffic. This difference was evident last holiday season, when there was a rush to buy a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X. This volume made it difficult for some retailers to sell the products they needed, or even temporarily impossible.
After the sale of the game systems, the website resumed normal operations after the slowdown in web requests. Although it is not necessarily a deliberate cyberattack the inability of a website’s server to handle the huge traffic is the same as a DDoS.
DDoS attacks are one of the most popular cyberattacks a hacker has in his arsenal. DDoS attacks are popular due to their ease of deployment and their high effectiveness. DDoS is even offered as a service by some cybercriminal organizations. Cisco predicts that DDoS attacks will rise from 7.9 million in 2018 up to more than 15 million annually by 2023.
What is a DDoS Attack and how can it be prevented?
A DDoS attack, in its simplest form, is an attempt by a botnet to overwhelm a website’s server or flood the network with more traffic than it can handle.
DDoS attacks are not the same thing as thousands, or even hundreds of thousand of people trying to access a website. They make it unavailable for a limited time. DDoS attacks are when an individual or group intentionally creates so much information traffic that the server/network is unable to function.
A denial of service attack (DoS) is a computer trying to send malicious data to another computer. Multiple computers trying to attack the same target with the same DDoS attack.
DDoS attacks can strike any organization or individual at any moment. Based on the volume of DDoS attacks that occur every day at different scales with varying success rates, it is possible that you will be affected by one in the future.
What is a DDoS attack?
DDoS attacks occur when there is a significant overload of information on a target server, website, or network service. If the attack succeeds, the impact effectively shuts down the target website, takes a network offline or makes it impossible to access the internet.
Information flooding by volume on a website server is the most common DDoS attack. DDoS attacks can also affect networks that use the Open Systems Interconnection network model. The hackers attack the layer (usually layer 7), that handles web page requests, and then target that portion of the network.
A DDoS attack can be carried out by a hacker or criminal organization. However, the actual attack is not performed by someone sitting at a desk and sending requests over-and-over. Computer-based bots send high volumes of requests repeatedly to servers and networks at a rate that is impossible for them to process.
The bots work together in order to flood a server with data and information, or exceed the bandwidth available. The botnet is not just made up of computers, but any internet-connected device can be included.
Three Signs that a DDoS Attack is Coming
Sometimes it can be difficult to determine if a website has been down due to a temporary spike or other sinister reasons. Or, if a n
