A Distributed Denial-of-Service attack (DDoS) is the attempt to make an online service unavailable by overloading the system with an exceptional amount of traffic. A multitude of compromised systems (usually unbeknownst to their users, see Botnet) attack a single target with external communication requests or incoming messages, until the system is overloaded, cannot respond adequately to any legitimate traffic and collapses. This technique is usually utilised by hacktivists and has extensive use in order to protest for various reasons concerning the freedom of information: Once the financial support for WikiLeaks had been shut down by the American government, supporters of activist Julian Assange launched DDoS attacks on several websites – including those of MasterCard, Visa, PayPal and Amazon.
DDoS
DDoSA Distributed Denial-of-Service attack (DDoS) is the attempt to make an online service unavailable by overloading the system with an exceptional amount of traffic. A multitude of compromised systems (usually unbeknownst to their users, see Botnet) attack a single target with external communication requests or incoming messages, until the system is overloaded, cannot respond adequately to any legitimate traffic and collapses. This technique is usually utilised by hacktivists and has extensive use in order to protest for various reasons concerning the freedom of information: Once the financial support for WikiLeaks had been shut down by the American government, supporters of activist Julian Assange launched DDoS attacks on several websites – including those of MasterCard, Visa, PayPal and Amazon.