If you are into online business and it is your only source of income, you need to be aware of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Otherwise, you can find your site crumbling one fine day making you incur huge losses and compelling you to shut shop. A Denial of Service attack is one made deliberately for the purpose of overwhelming your computer's processing power so that service is denied to legitimate users. When the same attack is done from distributed sources, it takes the form of Distributed Denial of Service attacks. Its victims include the end targeted system as well as the ones used and manipulated by the hacker in the process.
DDoS attacks can either be application-based or network-based. In the latter case, the victim computer is flooded with information by the attacker so that its communication lines are clogged up and it becomes unable to process the vast deluge of information. Let us have a look at some of the historically common methods of attacking:
Ping Floods: This is quite simplistic compared to the other techniques. Here, a flood of pings or requests are sent to the targeted computer by the attacking one seeking approval for communication. Sending of excessive ping requests often succeeds in overwhelming the victim.
Fraggle or Smurf Attacks: In this case, the Internet Protocol address is spoofed or falsified by the hacker making it appear the same as that of the computer of the victim. He then poses as the victim himself sending requests to a whole network of systems and asking for an acknowledgment. This acknowledgment is then sent by the entire network to the targeted computer thereby resulting in an information overload.
ACK or SYN Flood: This has the capability to exploit the manner of acknowledgment done by different computers during their first communication over the Internet. Introduction is made by the attacking computer with the help of a SYN message following standard Internet Protocol. This is responded by the targeted system with a SYN-ACK message after which it waits for the ACK acknowledgment to be issued by the attacker. However, such an acknowledgment is never issued which results in the usage of its resources waiting by the victim computer.
How to Stay Protected From Distributed Denial of Service Attack
You cannot eliminate distributed denial of service attacks with the help of short-term solutions. Proper DDoS protection comes from making networks and computers more resistant to attacks and threats. Each system has its limits. The trick lies in increasing them so that it is able to survive or withstand an increased requirement for usage. For instance, the number of connections to be accepted by a web service can be increased by the webmaster so that the increased load is spread over more number of computers.
If you still haven't shielded your site with DDoS protection it is high time you do so because you can be attacked any time. Some of the warning signs include a slower computer, slower internet connection and the activity lights on the high-speed modem being continually on or solid.
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