What is a DOS attack?

[rumguy]

How does it happen? Who would waste their time with such a thing?

[tarheel]

1. I believe the term DOS refers to

a denial of service attack accomplished by flooding a server with multiple requests that eventualy cause it to crash. :shrug:

One example I belive has happened right here at DU, when Flush Gasbag
(Rush Limbaugh) mentioned DU on the air and a sort of unintended DOS attack occurred causing serious problems with the DU forums.

[jimbo fett]

2. "Denial of Service" attack. It overloads a server by sending thousands of

electronics requests to that server by usurping other computers. Typically, this is the kind of computer virus that gets in the news.

[rumguy]

3. Well apparently DU suffered a DOS attack yesterday

So would have been coordinated by multiple people? And it is agains the law right?

[dweller]

6. nope, & yep

one person, multiple machines could do it.

i believe it's a felony....better get out my copy of the Patriot Act II and check there too.

dp

[rumguy]

7. well I hope whoever did the DOS attack on DU is formally charged

and gets a felony slapped on their record...

[Cooley Hurd]

12. Where did you hear this?

I've been curious as to why DU cranked to a halt yesterday...

[rumguy]

13. In the announcements..

Democratic Underground was the victim of a Denial of Service attack yesterday afternoon (Jan 14), which lasted for about two or three hours. There have been some extremely frustrating residual performance issues which resulted from changes made to our servers in order to fend off the attack.

We have been working closely with our web host to identify problems with our configuration and hopefully make it much more difficult for this type of thing to happen again.

We currently do not know who was responsible for this attack, but we are working with our ISP to see if we can find any clues.

I apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

[Renew Deal]

4. DoS attack

Short for denial-of-service attack, a type of attack on a network that is designed to bring the network to its knees by flooding it with useless traffic. Many DoS attacks, such as the Ping of Death and Teardrop attacks, exploit limitations in the TCP/IP protocols. For all known DoS attacks, there are software fixes that system administrators can install to limit the damage caused by the attacks. But, like viruses, new DoS attacks are constantly being dreamed up by hackers.

http://webopedia.com/TERM/D/DoS_attack.html

[Duder]

5. Must be going around

Two days ago the Progressive Review reported:

SHOP TALK: We are currently under a spam attack like we've never experienced before, with our 20 MG mail bin being filled several times a day. We would be shocked, shocked to learn that DARPA had anything to do with this, but on the other hand we can't figure out what thrill an ordinary hacker would get out disrupting little old us. In any case, we are coping as best we can but you may find some of your mail being rejected. Don't take it personally and try again.

[rumguy]

8. so flooding a mailbox with spam can lead to a DOS attack?

And what is DARPA?

[Duder]

9. DARPA is...

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and is the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense.

[mike_c]

10. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)....

And may I suggest Google....

[R3dD0g]

11. Not exactly.

Flooding a mail server will cause a DoS. But, you would need many workstations before you could generate enough email to flood a server.

That's one of the main things virii do - zombify the attacked machine so that it can be taken over in the future for either spam campaigns or DoS attacks or as a disguise for a true hacking attempt.