Understand the DDoS Attack Process: Threats, Causes, Types of Attacks and Mitigation Solution

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a coordinated attempt to make a particular system inaccessible by temporarily interrupting, suspending, or denying service from the targeted system. There are many different types of DDoS attacks and they all have a number of causes which include fatigue, frustration, and curiosity. The most devastating of these may be a volumetric DDoS attack that aims to overload a network with traffic thereby reducing its performance. 

DDoSAttack Process 

A DDoS attack is a process in which a target host is flooded with traffic originating from multiple sources, causing a denial of service. A DDoS attack can be executed through different means, including Low Orbit Ion Cannon, SYN Floods, UDP Floods, Reflection-based DDoS attacks, ICMP Floods, User Datagram Protocol Floods, Domain Name System Floods, and Layer 7 DDoS attacks. 

Threats DDoS Attack 

A DDoS attack is a form of cyber-attack in which multiple compromised systems overwhelm the bandwidth or resources of a targeted system. A DDoS attack can be carried out with any computer, no matter how old or new it is. A DDoS attack process is generally done in three steps. The first step is to compromise the target computer. This is usually done by sending a virus or Trojan to the target computer. 

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is an assault on a network or system by flooding it with data. A DDoS attack can range from generating 50 to 100 gigabytes of traffic per second to 250 gigabytes, 1 terabyte, 10 terabytes, or 100 terabytes per second, depending on the sophistication of the attack. This massive traffic flow can cripple even the most capable of networks and systems, making it impossible for legitimate traffic to pass through. 

Causes of DDoS Attack 

In a DDoS attack, hackers have the intention to deny access to a server from legitimate users by saturating it with traffic from various sources. There are various reasons for a DDoS attack such as political motivations, revenge or protest movements. In order to prevent a future attack, there are various ways to mitigate a potential attack by creating a DDoS plan and developing a DDoS protection strategy. 

Types of DDoS Attacks 

DDoS attacks can be divided into two categories, volumetric and reflection. A volumetric attack aims to flood a network or server with data using common sources like connection flooders or hijacked computers; this is known as flood-based DDoS attacks. Attackers also use reflection-based DDoS attacks. These are carried out by sending spoofed requests to a target machine or service in order to get the response sent back to the original requestor. This is known as a reflector-based DDoS attack. 

• ICMP (Ping) Flood 
• SYN Flood 
• Ping of Death 
• Slowloris 
• NTP Amplification 
• HTTP Flood 
• Zero-day DDoS Attacks 
• Volume Based Attacks 

DDoSAttack Mitigation Solution 

DDoS attack mitigation solution is a way to minimize the damage a DDoS attack can do. DDoS attacks are characterized by a large volume of requests from multiple sources, which can be sent simultaneously or in a phased manner, targeting a single system. When a DDoS attack occurs, the victim’s system is flooded with data and will be unable to respond to any legitimate traffic, as all its bandwidth is taken up by illegitimate requests.  

This will cause a slowdown in the website’s response time and if the attack is big enough, it can knock a site offline. A Distributed Denial of Service attack is a more sophisticated version of a DoS attack that involves using multiple sources to generate a lot of traffic. In most cases, the attack uses a botnet to send out spamming requests from various compromised computers, which makes it very hard to fend off.