💥Understanding DDoS Attacks: A Guide to Distributed Denial-of-Service

In today’s connected world, online services are expected to be available 24/7. However, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks remain one of the most disruptive threats to internet infrastructure.

A DDoS attack works by overwhelming a server, network, or application with a massive flood of traffic from multiple sources — usually a botnet of compromised devices. This makes the targeted service slow or completely unavailable to legitimate users.

🌐 How Does a DDoS Attack Work?

• Infection Phase – Attackers compromise thousands (or millions) of devices using malware.
• Control Phase – These devices become part of a botnet, controlled remotely by the attacker.
• Attack Phase – The botnet simultaneously sends massive traffic to the victim’s server.
• Impact Phase – The target becomes overloaded, causing service disruption or downtime.

🛠️ Types of DDoS Attacks

1️⃣ Volumetric Attacks

• Goal: Saturate available bandwidth.
• How: Sending high volumes of fake traffic to overwhelm the network.
• Example: A UDP Flood sends large packets to random ports, forcing the target to respond.

2️⃣ Protocol Attacks

• Goal: Exploit protocol weaknesses to exhaust server resources.
• How: Abuse handshake processes or malformed packets.
• Example: SYN Flood sends multiple SYN requests without completing the handshake, leaving connections half-open.

3️⃣ Application Layer Attacks

• Goal: Crash or slow down the actual application.
• How: Send legitimate-looking requests at high volume to overload server processing.
• Example: Slowloris sends partial HTTP requests very slowly, keeping connections open until the server can’t handle new requests.

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Written by: Megha SD