What is a DDOS attack? Is my website at risk?
Published on: December 30, 2013 by Marcus
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DDOS attacks and the increase in frequency
If you are wondering what does DDOS stand for it is - Distribution Denial of Service. It is a technical term used to describe an unprecedented attack on a software, service or application over the internet. In computing terms, this attack happens when traffic is sent from a host computer to another network resource with the sole aim of blocking their services, so that it becomes occupied and cannot be accessed by genuine users. In layman terms, it’s basically a program that attacks another person’s website or application to incapacitate it from being used by its regular users. This is what makes the website or application inaccessible. These types of attack are very common with servers of banks, payment gateways and more. Over the last few years there has been a surge in these kind of attacks though initially there were a few isolated incidents reported. With the increase in the eCommerce industry and people using the internet for more and more purposes these attacks have become quiet bothersome.
Reasons for DDOS attacks
It is very difficult to pin point a definite reason to these attacks being conducted but the speculation is these attacks could occur due to:
If you have a competitor who does not want to battle it out fairly then they could devise a DDOS attack on your server and block all of your traffic therefore leaving your site out of action. This is a poor means of taking out their frustration or even slow down your business for that given amount of time, till you server recovers.
There are millions of hackers out there who are paid to hack complicated codes and create a disability for systems. Often some of these coders do it for the fun of it, or they are just testing the waters to see how far they can go or how well-versed their coding abilities are. This often affects the business but is done with no sadistic goal in mind.
How to identify DDOS attacks?
There are several different types of DDOS attacks and with its increase of the years you should start concentrating on – ‘how to defend against DDOS’. They can cost you a lot of money and can be taxing on your time. Firstly, in order to know how to stop DDOS attacks you should know how to detect them. Here are a few signs that you could look out for:
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Extremely slow network speed
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Can’t get through to a website
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Not being able to access a particular site
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An alarming increase in the number of emails [mostly spam]. This is also known as an email-bomb
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Sudden drops and disconnections in wireless or LAN internet connection
If you want to know how to mitigate DDOS attacks then you must take the necessary precautions to prevent these sort of attacks.
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