Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks have been hitting the headlines more than normal in the last week following a number of high profile news stories.
For those who don’t know, a DDoS attack is when compromised zombie computers around the world are instructed by a hacker (known as the botmaster) to flood a website with traffic. The website can become so swamped with traffic from computers based around the globe that it can be slowed down considerably, or even made utterly inaccessible by the outside world.
If it makes it easier to picture it, think of 20 hippos trying to get through a revolving door – the whole thing gets clogged up, and no-one is able to get in or out.
DDoS attacks are frequently used for blackmail. We have reported in the past on some of the Russian hackers who have been sentenced for…
Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.
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