What is a DDOS attack and how to avoid it

 Many of us have read and heard many times about DDOS attacks (denial of service attacks). But do you know what it really is? DDOS seems like a very technical term, but this attack is easy to understand. Also, they are mostly used by cybercriminals around the world, so it is important to understand what a DDOS attack is.

What is a DDoS Attack

DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. A DDOS attack aims to disable the use of a system, application or machine, to block the services it wants. This attack can affect both sources that offer information such as applications or transmission channels, as well as computer networks.

A web server can complete a number of requests or user connections simultaneously, if it exceeds that number, it starts to slow down or may even fail to respond to requests or outright block and disconnect from the internet.

Types of DDOS Attack Types

1. Denial of service(DoS).

2. Distributed Denial of service (DDoS).

The difference between the two is the number of computers or IPs carrying out the attack. DoS attacks generate a large number of requests from the same machine or IP address, thereby depleting the resources offered by the service until there comes a point when it has no response capacity and starts rejecting requests, this is when a denial of service appears.

In the case of a DDoS attack, requests or connections are made using a large number of computers or IP addresses. These requests are made all at the same time and go to the same attack service object. DDoS attacks are more difficult to detect because the number of requests are from different IPs, and administrators cannot block the IP making the requests, as is the case in a DoS attack.

Computers that carry out DDoS attacks will infect from malware, so that they become bots or zombies, which can be controlled remotely by cybercriminals. A set of bots, i.e., computers infected by the same malware, forms a botnet or also known as a zombie network. This network has a much higher capacity to destroy servers than an attack by just one machine.

To check if your computer is infected with any type of malware and belongs to a zombie network, you can use a service like Malwarebytes which will detect if your system belongs to malware.

Why was this attack carried out?

As we have seen, denial of service attacks are used to disable the services offered by the server, causing the system to collapse and taking advantage of its vulnerabilities. Cyber criminals aim to cause harm, both to the users providing the service, and to the administrators offering it. This causes losses, both economically and user trust.

By far the most significant denial of service attack in history occurred on February 28, 2018, to a well-known collaboration project platform. This attack is carried out in a distributed manner, namely with a DDoS attack. Despite all the security available to the platform, it can't cope with a bombardment of 126.9 million packets or about 1.35 terabit/second. This attack is carried out through a network of botnets using the servers of various entities.

How to Avoid DDOS Attacks

As users, we should check router and firewall configurations to detect invalid or incorrect IPs, coming from possible attackers. Usually, Internet Service Provider (ISP) ensures that our router is safe with this configuration.

On the other hand, organizations and companies providing these services must protect their network and infrastructure to prevent DDOS attacks from affecting their work performance and, as a consequence, their clients. If a company is affected by a Distributed denial of service (DDoS attack), it will lose the trust of its customers. And do you guys know what type of attack this is? Let the admin know if you have ever experienced a denial of service attack.

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Resa Risyan

Just an ordinary person who wants to share a little knowledge, hopefully the knowledge I provide can be useful for all of us. Keep in mind! Useful knowledge is an investment in the afterlife.