Distributed denial-of-service attacks typically originate from multiple sources, making them difficult to trace and effectively block the attacking internet protocol (IP) addresses. This guide provides an overview of the denial-of-service (DoS) and DDoS landscapes, including attack types, motivations, and potential impacts on government operations, as well as practical steps on implementing preventative measures, and incident response for each of the defined DDoS and DoS technique types.
Additionally, it highlights why it is important for organizations to focus their planning efforts on emerging DDoS trends and technologies to better defend against malicious DDoS activity.
DoS and DDoS A DoS and a DDoS attack are similar in that they both aim to disrupt the availability of a target system or network. However, there are key differences between the two.
1. DoS Attack:
A DoS attack involves a single source used to overwhelm the target system with a flood of traffic or resource-consuming requests. The malicious actor typically uses one computer or a small number of computers to generate the attack. The goal of a DoS attack is to render the target system unavailable to its intended users and deny them access to resources or services.
2. DDoS Attack:
A DDoS attack involves multiple sources. Often, a multitude of compromised computers—known as botnets—are coordinated to launch the attack. Each machine in the botnet sends a flood of traffic or requests to the target system simultaneously to amplify the follow-on impact. Due to the distributed nature of a DDoS attack, defending targeted networks has increased difficulty compared to a DoS attack.
The main advantage of a DDoS attack over a DoS attack is the ability to generate a significantly higher volume of traffic, overwhelming the target system’s resources to a greater extent. DDoS attacks can also employ various techniques, such as IP spoofing, which involves a malicious actor manipulating the source IP address and botnets to disguise the origin of the attack and make it more difficult to trace it back to them. In terms of impact, both DoS and DDoS attacks can disrupt the availability of a targeted system or network, leading to service outages, financial losses, and reputational damage.
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