What is a DDoS attack?
A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of Internet traffic. DDoS attacks achieve effectiveness by utilizing multiple compromised computer systems as sources of attack traffic. Exploited machines can include computers and other networked resources such as IoT devices. From a high level, a DDoS attack is like a traffic jam clogging up a highway, preventing regular traffic from arriving at its destination.
How does a DDoS attack work?
A DDoS attack uses a large number of compromised devices to overwhelm a target with bogus requests to a web service. These flooded requests eventually cause the targeted servers to crash, resulting in a denial-of-service to legitimate users.
There are several ways a DDoS attack can manifest:
– Volume-based DDoS Attacks: This form of attack aims to saturate the bandwidth of the targeted site, server, or network. This overwhelms the target’s infrastructure and consumes all available bandwidth. This causes a dramatic slowdown or complete unavailability of the system. An example is a UDP flood attack which sends a huge volume of UDP packets to random ports on the victim system.
– Protocol attacks: These attacks target vulnerability in Layer 3 and Layer 4 protocols such as SYN flood, Ping of Death, Smurf Attack, and more. These protocol attacks consume actual server resources and can crash systems and servers.
– Application layer attacks: These attacks target Layer 7 of the OSI model and exploit vulnerabilities in web applications. Attackers send a huge volume of application requests to websites and web applications. Example attacks include GET/POST floods, Slowloris, RUDY, and more. These attacks are designed to crash web servers and take down web applications and sites.
What are the effects of a DDoS attack?
DDoS attacks can have catastrophic effects on the target organization or network, including:
– Service Outage – The glut of bogus requests overwhelms the target, causing the server or network to slow down or even crash. This leads to denial of service to legitimate users who are unable to access the server or service. Critical business operations and productivity can grind to a halt.
– Reputational Damage – Highly publicized DDoS attacks negatively impact an organization’s brand and reputation. Customers lose trust in the company’s ability to maintain operations and keep their data secure.
– Loss of Revenue – Being knocked offline means customers can no longer purchase goods and services from the company’s website. This directly translates into lost sales revenue.
– Degraded Network Performance – The flood of attack traffic can significantly degrade network connectivity between the target’s internal IT resources. This slows down overall IT performance.
– Security Risks – Large-scale DDoS floods can be used as a smokescreen to camouflage intrusions into the target’s infrastructure. With IT teams busy mitigating the DDoS flood, hackers can sneak into networks.
What are common DDoS attack tools?
Some commonly used DDoS tools include:
– LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon) – An open source network stress testing and DDoS attack application. It allows users to flood targets with TCP, UDP and HTTP requests.
– HOIC (High Orbit Ion Cannon) – An updated version of LOIC that allows users to conduct much larger DDoS attacks through voluntary botnets. It allows simultaneous attacks on multiple targets.
– Trinoo – One of the first DDoS tools created. Launches coordinated attacks via a client/handler network of compromised computers known as “zombies” or “bots”.
– Tribe Flood Network – Also known as TFN2K. Uses ICMP packets in its DDoS attacks. Adds encryption features to conceal identity of attackers.
– Botnets – A network of infected computers used to launch coordinated DDoS attacks under the control of a hacker. Botnets like Mirai have been used in some of the largest DDoS attacks in history.
– RUDY – Web application DDoS tool that performs multithreaded GET and POST HTTP floods to bring down web servers.
– XOIC – A simple open source DDoS tool written in Python that allows users to perform Layer 7 DDoS attacks.
What are common DDoS attack vectors?
Some of the most common DDoS attack vectors include:
– Volumetric Attacks – This is the most common DDoS attack vector. It simply aims to flood the network bandwidth of the target. ICMP floods, UDP floods and other spoofing attacks are examples.
– Protocol Attacks – Designed to consume actual server resources and overwhelm state tables. SYN flood attacks, Ping of Death, and Smurf DDoS are examples.
– Application Layer Attacks – Target web applications by exhausting server resources via malformed requests, slow POST/GET attacks, etc.
– DNS Amplification – Spoofs the IP address of the target using DNS resolvers. This allows a small request to generate a much larger payloads directed at the target.
– Permanent Denial of Service – Can disable or damage systems or hardware. Examples are bricking IoT devices or frying computer circuits via voltage spikes.
– SSL Renegotiation – Exploits the SSL renegotiation process to create heavy HTTPS traffic loads designed to overwhelm web servers.
What are common DDoS attack statistics?
Some noteworthy DDoS attack statistics:
– 60% of organizations experience an average of 6 DDoS attacks per year.
– The average cost of infrastructure downtime from a DDoS attack is estimated around $250,000 per hour.
– The largest DDoS attack recorded reached 2.3Tbps and disabled a Cloudflare customer in 2022.
– Most DDoS attacks last less than 30 minutes, but attacks exceeding 20 hours are also common.
– 70% of DDoS attacks target service providers, cloud providers and CDNs vs individual enterprises.
– Multivector attacks combining multiple DDoS vectors account for 50% of DDoS attacks today.
– Extortion demands for money in exchange to call off a DDoS attack have increased 143% in recent years.
What are common DDoS attack prevention tips?
Here are some tips to help prevent DDoS attacks:
– Employ DDoS mitigation services – Use cloud scrubbing services that can absorb attack traffic on your behalf.
– Enable firewall blacklisting – Block traffic from known malicious IP addresses.
– Over-provision bandwidth – Have bandwidth capacity that is larger than typical traffic loads.
– Enable rate limiting – Throttle traffic levels from individual IPs to protect servers.
– Patch vulnerabilities – Keep web applications updated to prevent exploits.
– Monitor for anomalies – Use network monitoring to watch for spikes that signal an attack.
– Create traffic baseline – Understand normal traffic patterns to better detect surges.
– Use IP reputation filter – Leverage threat intelligence that identifies dangerous IP addresses.
– Follow security best practices – Strong data security enhances overall resilience.
What are the legal implications of DDoS?
Launching DDoS attacks carries stiff legal penalties:
– Violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act with fines and up to 10 years imprisonment.
– Breaks laws against blackmail and extortion when used to extract ransom payments.
– Can lead to charges of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets.
– May violate laws against sabotage if used to damage systems and infrastructure.
– Can constitute an act of cyberterrorism depending on context of the attack.
However, it is technically not illegal to create tools that could be used to perform DDoS attacks. The actual use of such tools to attack systems would constitute the illegal act.
Is it possible to fully prevent DDoS damage?
It is very difficult to completely prevent disruption from a large scale Distributed Denial of Service attack. Full prevention would require vastly over-provisioned capacity and redundancy across infrastructure and networks that is cost prohibitive.
However, proactive prevention measures coupled with DDoS mitigation services can dramatically reduce the harm caused by attacks. Maintaining strong cybersecurity and network monitoring capabilities is also key. The goal is resilience and fast recovery after attacks.
Should DDoS attacks be considered cyberwarfare?
Use of DDoS attacks by state-sponsored actors against the IT infrastructure of rival nations could potentially be considered a form cyberwarfare. However, Distributed Denial of Service attacks are more commonly associated with cybercriminals rather than government-backed cyberwar activities.
Cyber warfare also implies a broader strategic campaign involving exploits, malware, and infiltration of critical infrastructure – actions that go beyond DDoS floods. Nonetheless, the take down of strategic web services via DDoS attack could inflict serious damage on a nation during wartime. Outlawing these attacks during peacetime is prudent.
How are DDoS attacks evolving?
DDoS attacks are becoming more dangerous with these trends:
– Increased magnitude – Attacks exceeding 1 Tbps are more common using amplification vectors like DNS and NTP reflection.
– Botnet armies – Cheap IoT devices allow assembling botnets with tens of thousands of compromised hosts.
– New spoofed vectors – Attackers continuously find new protocols like Apple Remote Management to spoof and amplify floods.
– Automated tools – Ready-to-use DDoS booters and stressers allow novices to launch attacks with ease.
– New targets – Growth of cloud computing means providers are prime targets with collateral damage to users.
– New motivations – Ransom demands and political/social justice hacktivism spur some DDoS attacks.
– Multivector attacks – Barrages incorporating multiple attack vectors make mitigation harder.
– Increased frequency – High profile attacks lead to copycat efforts and growth in DDoS-for-hire services.
Should DDoS attacks be taken more seriously by law enforcement?
Yes, absolutely. The potentially disastrous effects of DDoS attacks on businesses, critical infrastructure and services means law enforcement should make these incidents a high priority. Considering attacks a simple disruptive prank underestimates the major risks they pose.
Stronger prosecution using laws like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act would deter casual attackers using DDoS as a form of protest. Anti-cybercrime task forces tracking botnets, malware and hackers would also disrupt the DDoS-for-hire services fueling attacks globally. International cooperation between law enforcement is also vital to combat attacks originating overseas.
Conclusion
DDoS attacks can inflict serious damage on networks and web services, especially as attack bandwidths reach massive scale. Preventing attacks requires a layered defense of proactive measures coupled with strong mitigation capabilities. As attacks continue evolving, adapting protections and maintaining resiliency will be an ongoing challenge for organizations and cloud providers alike. Law enforcement efforts to prosecute attackers and dismantle cybercrime DDoS infrastructure will also be key. With vigilance and cooperation, the harmful impacts of DDoS can be diminished.