DDoS Attack

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) is a cybercrime in which the attacker floods a server with internet traffic to prevent users from accessing connected online services and sites.

About DDoS Attack:

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal functioning of a targeted server, service, or network by overwhelming it with a flood of internet traffic.

How does DDoS Attacks Work?

• Attackers typically use a network of infected computers, known as a botnet, which consists of devices that have been taken over by malware.
• The attacker controls these devices remotely, often using Command and Control (C&C) servers to direct them.
• The botnet sends an enormous volume of traffic to the target, aiming to saturate its bandwidth or overwhelm its network infrastructure.
• This includes flooding the target with more data than it can handle.
• These attacks exploit weaknesses in network protocols or use malformed packets to disrupt services.
• These attacks target specific applications or services by sending requests that consume excessive server resources, such as memory or CPU.
• The target server or network becomes overloaded, causing it to slow down, crash, or become completely unresponsive.
• Legitimate users are unable to access the service, leading to downtime and potential financial loss for businesses.
• Prolonged outages can damage the target’s reputation and customer trust.

Types of DDoS Attacks

• Volume-Based Attacks: Sends large amounts of UDP packets to random ports, consuming bandwidth. It overwhelms the target with ICMP Echo Request packets (pings), saturating the network.
• Protocol Attacks- Like Smurf attacks and SYN Flood.
• Application Layer Attacks- HTTP Flood: Sends a high volume of HTTP requests, Slowloris: Holds connections open by sending partial HTTP headers, exhausting server resources.

Mitigation Strategies

• Traffic Filtering: Use firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems, and DDoS protection services to filter out malicious traffic.
• Rate Limiting: Implement rate limiting to control the number of requests a user can make in a given time period.
• Load Balancing: Distribute traffic across multiple servers to reduce the impact on any single server.
• Cloud-Based DDoS Protection: Employ cloud-based services that absorb and mitigate large-scale attacks.
• Regular Updates and Patching: Ensure that all systems and software are up to date to protect against known vulnerabilities.

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