Understanding Denial of Service Attacks

Denial of Service (DoS) attacks are designed to disrupt access to online services or data, costing organizations time and money due to resource inaccessibility. These attacks can be as simple as overwhelming a target from a single machine or as complex as utilizing a botnet of millions of computers for a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Historical context reveals that the first known DoS attack was orchestrated by a high school student in 1974, who exploited a command in an early computerized learning system, demonstrating how these tactics have evolved over decades. Modern attackers often use amplification techniques, whereby small requests to intermediary servers generate substantial traffic directed at the target, complicating the defense against such threats.