Denial-Of-Service (DOS) Attack

What Is A Denial-Of-Service (DoS) Attack?

A Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack attempts to bring a system or network to a halt, rendering it unreachable to its intended users.

Deeper Definition

DoS attacks work by inundating the target with traffic or delivering information that causes it to crash. The DoS attack deprives genuine users (workers, members, or account holders) of the service or resource they anticipated in both cases.

DoS assaults frequently target high-profile corporations such as banks, commerce, media companies, and government and trade organizations’ web servers. Although DoS assaults seldom result in the theft or loss of sensitive information or other assets, they can cost the victim a lot of time and money to cope with.

Denial-Of-Service (DoS) Attack Example

DoS attacks may be carried out in two ways: flooding or crashing systems. Flood assaults occur when a system receives too much traffic for the server to buffer. This slows it down and finally stops it. Among the most common floods are:

1. The most frequent DoS technique is a buffer overrun, and the idea is to send more traffic to a network address than the system’s engineers anticipated. It comprises the attacks described below and those aimed at exploiting flaws in specific programs or networks.

2. ICMP flood – takes advantage of misconfigured network devices by delivering faked packets that ping every computer on the targeted network rather than just one. The network is then activated to increase the traffic volume. The smurf attack, or ping of death, is another name for this attack.

3. SYN flood – makes a connection request to a server but does not finish the handshake. It continues until all open ports are flooded with requests and no legitimate users can connect to them.

4. Other DoS attacks take advantage of flaws in the target system or service, causing it to crash. In these attacks, input is received that takes advantage of vulnerabilities in the target, causing the system to crash or become significantly destabilized, making it impossible to access or utilize. The Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) assault is another sort of DoS attack. When several systems coordinate a coordinated DoS assault on a single target, it is called a DDoS attack. The main distinction is that instead of being assaulted from a single point, the victim is attacked from several points simultaneously.