What are the Common Types of Denial of Service Attacks?
If you’re running a business website, then, hopefully, you are already aware of the concept of denial of service attacks. You may, however, not be aware that there are actually different types of denial of service attacks. Understanding this, and incorporating this understanding into how you build and manage your IT infrastructure, can go a long way towards ensuring it keeps running smoothly.
Types of DoS Attacks (Denial of Service Attacks)
Depending on your point of view there are two or three types of denial of service attacks. These are denial of service attacks, distributed denial of service attacks, and unintended distributed denial of service attacks.
1. Denial of Service Attacks (DoS)
The basic version of a denial of service attack is simply one computer flooding a service with requests, usually from a spoofed IP address. These attacks are annoying, but they are also about as unsophisticated as it is possible to be and hence easily addressed.
2. Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDoS)
DDoS attacks have become one of the major hazards of the internet, at least for anyone running a website, especially a business website. They come in two main forms. These are infrastructure level DDoS attacks (levels three and four of the OSI seven-layer model) and application-level DDoS attacks (levels six and seven of the OSI seven-layer model).
Infrastructure-level DDoS attacks are essentially much the same as old-school DoS attacks. The only real difference is that DDoS attacks use multiple computers in the attack, whereas plain DoS attacks only use one. This means that infrastructure-level DDoS attacks are a bit more of a challenge to resolve. Overall, however, they are still very unsophisticated and hence very easy to deal with.
Unintended Distributed Denial of Service Attacks
Application-level DDoS attacks are, however, quite another matter. These target high-value areas of a website such as its login page, its payment page, or its most important service. The underlying strategy is to flood that specific application with as much traffic as possible while avoiding detection.
Even when these attacks are detected, it is notoriously difficult to put a stop to them without losing genuine traffic.
Unintended distributed denial of service attacks
It's debatable whether or not these should be considered attacks since they are not deliberate. They do, however, display much the same characteristics as regular DDoS attacks so it's useful to be aware of them.
Unintended DDoS attacks are what happens when a website, or part of a website, gets an overwhelming surge in legitimate traffic. This winds up having the same effect as a DDoS attack. Unintended DDoS attacks often happen due to exposure on social media.
Ironically, this exposure can not only be entirely non-malicious, it can even be absolutely well-intentioned. An influencer may think that they're actually doing a brand a huge favor by "giving a shout out" to their products/services. Although this might not sound like much consolation while you are dealing with the impact, it may actually be a help to you over the long run.
One of the key differentiators between regular DDoS attacks and unintended DDoS attacks is that the former often originate in countries from which you wouldn’t expect to have traffic, whereas the latter generally comes from countries in which you have at least some kind of customer base.
Preparing for DoS attacks
You can’t really prevent DDoS attacks. They don’t rely on malware you can block or hacking skills you can block and/or detect. They simply ramp up traffic to your website and challenge you to handle it. This means that your anti-DoS strategy is to prepare for DoS attacks so you can keep your website running which you find and block the source. There are three key parts to this.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is your friend for so many reasons. In the context of DoS attacks, the more bandwidth you have at your disposal, the more traffic you can absorb before it becomes a problem. This gives you more time to find and fix the issue.
A website vulnerability scanner (and DDoS mitigation service)
Different website vulnerability scanner have different functions, but any decent one should have an anti-malware scanner and a web-applications firewall. In the case of DoS attacks, it’s the latter you need. You might also want to consider signing up for a DDoS mitigation service. These are similar to regular firewalls but they are designed specifically with DDoS attacks in mind (whereas regular firewalls are generic) so they filter traffic much more quickly.
Flexible, scalable architecture
Ideally, you should use services such as smart DNS lookup, content distribution networks, and load balancers to help create flexible, scalable architecture, which is resistant to DoS attacks.
Please click here now to have your website scanned, for free, by cWatch from Comodo.
Removal
Security stack layer 1
Malware Detect & Removal
Our malware detection scanning, preventive methods and removal enables you to take a proactive approach to protect the business and brand reputation from malware attacks and infections.
- Unsuspecting websites get infected with malicious code.
- Continuous website monitoring to detect any incidents.
- Identify and remediate the cause to hardening your websites.
Comodo cWatch Web can identify malware, provide the tools and methods to remove it, and help to prevent future malware attacks at the edge before it hits the network, included as a paid member.
By clicking the button below, I agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Already have an cWatch account? Sign in here
Response
Security stack layer 5
Cyber Security Operations Center
Our exclusive C.S.O.C. is staffed with certified security analysts to monitor, assess and defend websites, applications, databases, data centers, servers, networks, desktops and other endpoints.
- 24 / 7 / 365 security monitoring using state-of-the-art tech.
- Engage clients of complex threats to resolve the issue.
- Real-time web traffic monitoring and proactive incident fixes.
C.S.O.C. checks for threats, identifies and analysis then performs the necessary actions to resolve the issue while offloading costs of in-house experts by using stack layer 3 to handle the heavy lifting.
By clicking the button below, I agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Already have an cWatch account? Sign in here
Intelligence
Security stack layer 3
Security Information • Event Management
S.I.E.M. collects logs and events the network traffic and web assets, security devices, operating systems, applications, databases, and reviews the vulnerabilities using artificial intelligence to process.
- Reduces billions of events into prioritized threats real-time.
- Identifies changes in network behavior with activity baselines.
- Flows data searches in real-time streaming or historical mode.
S.I.E.M. senses and tracks significant threats to links to all online supporting data and context for easier investigation. While anomaly detection to identify changes associated with the network safety.
By clicking the button below, I agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Already have an cWatch account? Sign in here
Prevention
Security stack layer 4
Web Application Firewall
W.A.F. by Comodo eliminates application vulnerabilities to protect websites and web applications against advanced attacks including Denial-of-Service (DDoS), SQL Injection and Cross-Site Scripting.
- Destroys malicious requests and thwart hack attempts.
- Protection to account registration forms and login pages.
- Malicious bots and brute force attacks are block and patched.
Combined with malware scanning, vulnerability scanning and automatic virtual patching and hardening engines provides robust security is fully managed for Comodo cWatch Web customers.
By clicking the button below, I agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Already have an cWatch account? Sign in here
Performance
Security stack layer 2
Add a network of globally distributed servers designed to boost the speed for websites and web applications by transferring content to your user based on their proximity to the nearest CDN web server.
- Proven to increase search engine rankings and site scores.
- 29 worldwide CDN node locations to reach your users.
- Save your bandwidth by leveraging CDN browser caching.
CDN serves your users your website content with virtually unlimited capacity. Giving you the freedom to focus less on site maintenance, more on scaling the uptime of your traffic and target audience.
By clicking the button below, I agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Already have an cWatch account? Sign in here
Compliance
Security stack layer 6
Payment Card Industry • Data Security Standard
PCI • DSS ensures that your customers' cardholder info is kept secure from security breaches through a meticulous scan of your network and applications to identify and fix security vulnerabilities.
- Simple and automated way to stay compliant with PCI • DSS.
- Pass the requirements for the 12 points PCI • DSS standard.
- Schedule on-demand PCI scans to report quarterly results.
Establishes and implements a firewall, hardens your environment, disables unnecessary services & configures system parameters to prevent misuse, ensures system audit components are protected.
By clicking the button below, I agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Already have an cWatch account? Sign in here
© 2024 Comodo Security Solutions, Inc