What is a denial-of-service (DoS) attack?

What is a denial-of-service attack?

A denial-of-service (DoS) attack is a type of cyber attack in which a malicious actor aims to render a computer or other device unavailable to its intended users by interrupting the device's normal functioning. DoS attacks typically function by overwhelming or flooding a targeted machine with requests until normal traffic is unable to be processed, resulting in denial-of-service to addition users. A DoS attack is characterized by using a single computer to launch the attack.

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is a type of DoS attack that comes from many distributed sources, such as a botnet DDoS attack.

How does a DoS attack work?

The primary focus of a DoS attack is to oversaturate the capacity of a targeted machine, resulting in denial-of-service to additional requests. The multiple attack vectors of DoS attacks can be grouped by their similarities.

DoS attacks typically fall in 2 categories:

Buffer overflow attacks

An attack type in which a memory buffer overflow can cause a machine to consume all available hard disk space, memory, or CPU time. This form of exploit often results in sluggish behavior, system crashes, or other deleterious server behaviors, resulting in denial-of-service.

Flood attacks

By saturating a targeted server with an overwhelming amount of packets, a malicious actor is able to oversaturate server capacity, resulting in denial-of-service. In order for most DoS flood attacks to be successful, the malicious actor must have more available bandwidth than the target.

What are some historically significant DoS attacks?

Historically, DoS attacks typically exploited security vulnerabilities present in network, software and hardware design. These attacks have become less prevalent as DDoS attacks have a greater disruptive capability and are relatively easy to create given the available tools. In reality, most DoS attacks can also be turned into DDoS attacks.

A few common historic DoS attacks include:

• Smurf attack - a previously exploited DoS attack in which a malicious actor utilizes the broadcast address of vulnerable network by sending spoofed packets, resulting in the flooding of a targeted IP address.
• Ping flood - this simple denial-of-service attack is based on overwhelming a target with ICMP (ping) packets. By inundating a target with more pings than it is able to respond to efficiently, denial-of-service can occur. This attack can also be used as a DDoS attack.
• Ping of Death - often conflated with a ping flood attack, a ping of death attack involves sending a malformed packet to a targeted machine, resulting in deleterious behavior such as system crashes.

How can you tell if a computer is experiencing a DoS attack?

While it can be difficult to separate an attack from other network connectivity errors or heavy bandwidth consumption, some characteristics may indicate an attack is underway.

Indicators of a DoS attack include:

• Atypically slow network performance such as long load times for files or websites
• The inability to load a particular website such as your web property
• A sudden loss of connectivity across devices on the same network

What is the difference between a DDoS attack and a DOS attack?

The distinguishing difference between DDoS and DoS is the number of connections utilized in the attack. Some DoS attacks, such as “low and slow” attacks like Slowloris, derive their power in the simplicity and minimal requirements needed to them be effective.

DoS utilizes a single connection, while a DDoS attack utilizes many sources of attack traffic, often in the form of a botnet. Generally speaking, many of the attacks are fundamentally similar and can be attempted using one more many sources of malicious traffic. Learn how Cloudflare's DDoS protection stops denial-of-service attacks.