10 protection tips against denial-of-service attacks for companies

A constantly growing online market offers companies numerous opportunities for growth and success. But with increasing reliance on online services and digital infrastructure comes the threat of denial of service (DoS) attacks. Get ready to protect your business from the dangers of the digital age and secure your online presence!

In this blog post, we reveal how DoS attacks work and offer effective tips and strategies that companies can use to secure their networks and maintain the availability of their services despite potential attacks.

A. What is a denial of service attack?

A denial of service (DoS) attack is an attack on a computer system where the goal is to prevent or restrict access to the system's service or resources.

The motivation behind a DoS attack can vary. Some attackers carry out denial of service attacks to cause chaos, others want to blackmail companies or organizations by interfering with services and demanding ransom payments. Sometimes DoS attacks are also carried out by activists or hacktivists to draw attention to political or ideological issues.

4 types of denial of service attacks

1. Volumetric attacks: These attacks aim to overload the bandwidth or resource capacity of a network by flooding it with massive amounts of data.

   1. UDP flood: The attacker sends large numbers of UDP (User Datagram Protocol) packets to random ports and forces the target to process every single packet, exhausting its resources.

   2. ICMP flood (ping flood): A large number of Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo request (ping) packets are sent to the destination, consuming both bandwidth and processing power.

2. Protocol-based attacks: These attacks exploit vulnerabilities in network protocols and overload the network infrastructure with malicious requests.

   1. SYN flood: Exploits the TCP handshake process. The attacker sends many SYN requests but does not complete the handshake, leaving connections open and exhausting server resources.

   2. Ping of death: The attacker sends oversized or malformed ping packets that cause the target to malfunction or crash.

3. Attacks at the application level: These attacks focus on specific applications or services and often overload them with seemingly legitimate requests.

   1. HTTP flood: The attacker sends a large number of HTTP requests (e.g. GET or POST), causing web servers or applications to become overloaded and unavailable.

   2. Slowloris: In this attack, many partial HTTP requests are opened and kept open indefinitely. This prevents the server from accepting new connections, which ultimately leads to a crash.

4. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS): In this type of attack, multiple compromised systems (often part of a botnet) are used to launch a coordinated DoS attack. These attacks are more effective and more difficult to mitigate due to the distributed nature of the attack traffic.

   1. Botnet DDoS: A network of compromised devices sends massive amounts of traffic to the target, overloading its resources.

   2. DNS amplification: The attacker sends small queries to open DNS resolvers with a spoofed IP (the victim's IP), causing the DNS servers to respond with much larger responses and flood the target.

B. 10 important differences between a DoS attack and a DDoS attack

While both Denial-of-Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks aim to disrupt access to computer systems, networks, or services, they differ significantly in their scale, complexity, and impact. Understanding these distinctions is crucial for IT professionals, especially those in critical sectors like healthcare and manufacturing, to effectively defend against these threats. Here's a breakdown of the key differences between them:

DoS attacks are carried out by a single attacker, while DDoS attacks originate from many different sources simultaneously, acting as part of a botnet. DDoS attacks tend to be more severe and require more advanced defenses.

How can you recogize denial-of-serive attack on your computer?

Spotting a denial-of-service attack early can be crucial in mitigating its impact, especially for organizations in sensitive sectors like healthcare and manufacturing. Recognizing the tell-tale signs on your own computer is the first line of defense. Here are some common indicators that your machine might be a target in a denial-of-service attack:

• Unusually slow internet connection: Web pages take an exceptionally long time to load, or fail to load at all, even for familiar and usually fast websites.

• Inability to access specific websites or online services: You might find yourself locked out of certain platforms or applications that you typically use without any issues.

• High network activity: Your computer's network indicator might be flashing rapidly even when you are not actively using the internet.

• Unresponsive applications: Programs on your computer might freeze, crash frequently, or become generally sluggish.

• System overload warnings: You might receive error messages indicating that system resources like CPU or memory are unusually high, even with few applications running.
  
  

C. How a denial-of-service attack works in companies?

A denial of service (DoS) attack is a form of cyberattack in which the main goal is to disrupt the availability of a computer system or service. By bombarding the system with an overwhelming number of requests or data packets, an attacker overloads the target's infrastructure, causing it to deny or restrict access to legitimate users.

Take a look at how this attack can be carried out.

1. Flooding with traffic: Attackers inundate the target system with an overwhelming volume of traffic, such as HTTP requests or data packets. This excessive load exceeds the system's capacity, causing it to slow down significantly or become completely unresponsive, hindering legitimate users.

2. Exploitation of vulnerabilities: DoS attacks can exploit weaknesses in software or network protocols. Attackers send specially crafted requests that trigger errors, crashes, or resource exhaustion, disrupting the system's ability to function correctly and maintain availability, a key aspect of IT-Security protection goals.

3. Resource exhaustion: Every system has finite resources, including memory, CPU processing power, and network bandwidth. DoS attacks aim to consume these limited resources by creating a large number of requests or processes, preventing the system from allocating them to legitimate users and thus compromising IT-Security protection goals.

4. Denial of service via distributed attacks (DDoS): A DDoS attack amplifies the impact of a traditional DoS attack by utilizing a network of compromised systems, known as a botnet. These compromised machines, controlled by the attacker, simultaneously flood the target with traffic, making the attack far more powerful and difficult to mitigate, posing a significant challenge to IT-Security protection goals.

DoS attacks essentially work by overloading or disrupting systems so that they are no longer available to users. They can be caused either by excessive traffic or by exploiting vulnerabilities in the target system.

2 examples of denial-of-service attacks

EXAMPLE 1:

An attacker carries out a denial-of-service attack on the website of an e-commerce company. The attacker uses a botnet of infected computers to send a massive number of requests to the website. The website's servers are overloaded with a high volume of data, causing the website to become inaccessible to legitimate customers and affecting e-commerce operations for an extended period of time.

EXAMPLE 2:

An attacker carries out a DoS attack on a corporate network. The attacker sends a large number of specially formatted network packets to the company's network router. These packets are designed to exploit a security flaw in the router and cause it to reboot or crash repeatedly. As a result, the company's network is compromised, communication is interrupted and employees can no longer access their work resources.

D. 10 tips on how companies can avoid denial of service attacks

To protect themselves from denial of service (DoS) attacks, companies should take proactive measures. Here are some practical tips that organizations can use to reduce the likelihood of DoS attacks and make their networks and systems more resilient.

1. Ensure your network has sufficient bandwidth, scalability and redundancyto cope with increased traffic and attacks.
2. Distribute incoming traffic to different servers to spread the load and prevent individual systems from being overloaded.
3. Set up firewalls to block unwanted traffic and use IDS/IPS detection/prevention systems to detect and prevent suspicious activity.
4. By using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), you can distribute traffic to different servers, improving the performance and resilience of your system.
5. Continuously monitor incoming traffic to detect unusual patterns or anomalies that could indicate a potential attack.
6. By regularly reviewing and updating your security measures, potential vulnerabilities can be identified and remedied before they are exploited by attackers.
7. Implement rate-limiting mechanisms. Use mechanisms that limit the number of requests or connections from individual IP addresses or users to prevent overload.
8. Make your employees aware of potential threats and provide them with training on how to recognize phishing attempts, social engineering and other common attack methods.
9. Create an emergency plan that contains clear instructions for dealing with DoS attacks. This includes what to do in the event of an attack, how to communicate with internal and external stakeholders and how to restore operations after an attack.
10. Work with DriveLock to audit your systems, identify vulnerabilities and implement measures to protect against denial of service attacks.
    
    

Denial of service attacks are a serious threat to organizations as they can impact the availability of their services and customer satisfaction. By proactively protecting themselves with security measures such as a robust network infrastructure, traffic monitoring and employee training.

They can strengthen their resilience and minimize the damage caused by such attacks. With a solid defense strategy, companies can maintain their online presence and retain the trust of their customers in an increasingly connected world.