Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDOS) is a technique of unsettling a network or website. With a DDoS, the attack source is more than one, often several thousand unique IP addresses. However, it is just a piece of a landscape threat. Businesses and data centers need to be protected against all forms of threats- and not just the popular DDOS attacks. An organization’s websites and networks can be targeted with mass intrusions, network scans, and flood attacks that consume the resources on the network- making information available for legitimate users. The network layer can be disrupted with various attack tools such as Port scans, DOS attacks tools that misuse the resources on the network server. Also, a network layer is vulnerable to various attacks that exploit the holes in a network security, executing malicious commands or consuming resources.
Types of DDOS Attacks
Flood Attacks
The process of a flood attack is simple. A network server is sent more requests than it can handle by an attacker in a relentless manner until the server gives in to the attacker. The server returns back to normal operation when the attack stops. Flood attacks are common because the software used to execute the attack is very easy to get. There are various methods of flood attacks, and they include ping flooding, smurf attack, and UDP attack.
Logic Attacks
The goal of a login attack is similar to that of a similar attack, but the intrusion technique is often more subtle and much different. Login attacks are carried out on non-standard traffic unlike flood attacks and exploit security holes in the network server. When a hacker uses a login attack against your server, he will need to identify and locate your server’s weakness and then use them to attack.
Domain Name Service (DNS) Attacks
Domain Name System (DNS) is a scheme which gives your browser the ability to match the address typed by a user (URL) with the string of numbers designated to the site address on the internet. It is also called the phonebook of the web and it can be used to as a medium for DDOS attack. Hackers can send a massive volume of data to a target network by sends smaller requests from a DNS server.
Prevention, Detection, and Mitigation
Some DDOS attacks can be prevented by ensuring that your server hardware and software is updated regularly with the security patches and firmware respectively. It can also be prevented by blocking unused ports and using modern networking hardware. Others cannot be prevented, and the best you can do in those situations is to use detection software to find and stop the attacks early before they cause much damage to your service.
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