Briefly respond to all the following questions. Make sure to explain and backup your responses with facts and examples. This assignment should be in APA format and have to include at least two references. 1) What is a Denial of Service attack? How does it function? 2) List two real Denial of service Attacks that occurred in the last few years. (Make sure to include references). Note: Need 600words with references in APA format NO PLAIGARISM Purchase the answer to view it
A denial of service (DoS) attack refers to malicious actions taken by a perpetrator to disrupt the normal functioning of an online service, computer network, or system. The ultimate goal of a DoS attack is to make the targeted service unavailable to its intended users or customers. This is usually done by overwhelming the targeted system with a flood of illegitimate requests or by exploiting some vulnerability in the system to exhaust its resources.
There are several ways in which a DoS attack can function, including:
1. Bandwidth Consumption: In this type of attack, the attacker floods the targeted network or service with an excessive amount of traffic, consuming all available bandwidth. This prevents legitimate users from accessing the network, resulting in a denial of service.
2. Resource Exhaustion: In this type of attack, the attacker exploits vulnerabilities in the targeted system to exhaust its resources, such as memory, processing power, or network connections. By consuming these resources, the attacker effectively renders the system unable to handle legitimate requests, thereby denying service to legitimate users.
3. Application Layer Attacks: These attacks target specific applications or services running on a system, exploiting vulnerabilities in their implementation. These attacks are often more sophisticated and effective than traditional DoS attacks, as they can be designed to specifically impact the targeted application or service.
4. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks: In a DDoS attack, the attacker leverages multiple computers or devices (known as a botnet) to launch a coordinated attack on the targeted system. By distributing the attack across multiple sources, the attacker can overwhelm the system’s resources more effectively, making it harder to mitigate the attack.
Now, let’s discuss two real denial of service attacks that occurred in the last few years:
1. Mirai Botnet Attack (2016): This attack occurred in September 2016 and targeted Dyn, a major Domain Name System (DNS) provider. The attackers used the Mirai botnet, which consisted of thousands of compromised Internet of Things (IoT) devices, to launch a massive DDoS attack on Dyn’s infrastructure. This resulted in the disruption of several popular websites and services, including Twitter, Spotify, and Reddit.
References:
– Akamai Threat Research. (2016). The Mirai Botnet Attacks Dyn: A Brand Name Disruption. Retrieved from https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/q2-2017-state-of-the-internet-security-report.pdf
2. GitHub DDoS Attack (2018): In February 2018, GitHub, a popular coding platform, experienced a significant DDoS attack that lasted for several days. The attack, which peaked at an unprecedented volume of 1.35 terabits per second, overwhelmed GitHub’s infrastructure and caused intermittent disruptions to its services. The attack was executed using a technique called Memcached amplification, which exploited misconfigured Memcached servers to amplify the attack traffic.
References:
– GitHub. (2018). GitHub Availability Report. Retrieved from https://blog.github.com/2018-03-02-ddos-incident-report/
– Cloudflare. (2018). Here Comes the Memcached DDoS Attacks. Retrieved from https://blog.cloudflare.com/memcrashed-major-amplification-attacks-from-port-11211/
