A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of a person or people to prevent an Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private and public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by a broad array of electronic and site A website is a collection of related web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that are addressed relative to a common Uniform Resource Locator (URL), often consisting of only the domain name, or the IP address, and the root path ('/') in an Internet Protocol-based network. A web site is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a or service A web service is traditionally defined by the W3C as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. It has an interface described in a machine-processable format (specifically Web Services Description Language WSDL). Other systems interact with the web service in a manner prescribed by its from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely. Perpetrators of DoS attacks typically target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers A web server is a computer program that delivers content, such as web pages, using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The term web server can also refer to the computer or virtual machine running the program. In large commercial deployments, a server computer running a web server can be rack-mounted in a server rack or cabinet with other servers to such as banks, credit card A credit card is part of a system of payments named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. It is a card entitling its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services. The issuer of the card grants a line of credit to the consumer from which the user can borrow money for payment gateways, and even root nameservers A root name server is a name server for the Domain Name System's root zone. It directly answers requests for records in the root zone and answers other requests returning a list of the designated authoritative name servers for the appropriate top-level domain . The root name servers are a critical part of the Internet because they are the first.
One common method of attack involves saturating the target (victim) machine with external communications requests, such that it cannot respond to legitimate traffic, or responds so slowly as to be rendered effectively unavailable. In general terms, DoS attacks are implemented by either forcing the targeted computer(s) to reset, or consuming its resources A resource, or system resource, is any physical or virtual component of limited availability within a computer system. Every device connected to a computer system is a resource. Every internal system component is a resource. Virtual system resources include files, network connections and memory areas so that it can no longer provide its intended service or obstructing the communication media between the intended users and the victim so that they can no longer communicate adequately.
Denial-of-service attacks are considered violations of the IAB The Internet Architecture Board is the committee charged with oversight of the technical and engineering development of the Internet by the Internet Society (ISOC)'s Internet proper use policy, and also violate the acceptable use policies An acceptable use policy is a set of rules applied by the owner/manager of a network, website or large computer system that restrict the ways in which the network site or system may be used. AUP documents are written for corporations, businesses, universities, schools, internet service providers, and website owners often to reduce the potential of virtually all Internet Service Providers An Internet service provider , also sometimes referred to as an Internet access provider (IAP), is a company that offers its customers access to the Internet. The ISP connects to its customers using a data transmission technology appropriate for delivering Internet Protocol datagrams, such as dial-up, DSL, cable modem, wireless or dedicated high-. They also commonly constitute violations of the laws of individual nations Computer crime encompass a broad range of potentially illegal activities. Generally, however, it may be divided into one of two types of categories: crimes that target computer networks or devices directly; (2) crimes facilitated by computer networks or devices, the primary target of which is independent of the computer network or device.[1]
