Denial-of-Service (DoS) in Cyber Security
- DoS (Denial-of-Service) is a cyberattack that aims to make a network service or website unavailable to its intended users.
- It works by flooding the server or resource with too many requests, overloading it until it crashes or slows down.
- The attack typically targets web servers, applications, or network infrastructure.
- Legitimate users are unable to access the service during a DoS attack.
- It does not involve unauthorized access or data theft — the goal is disruption, not intrusion.
- These attacks are often launched from a single machine using scripts or tools.
- Common symptoms of a DoS attack include website downtime, slow performance, or network congestion.
- Some variants include Ping of Death, SYN Flood, and HTTP Flood attacks.
- Protection methods include firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS), and traffic rate limiting.
- A more advanced form is DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) which uses multiple sources for the attack.