THR is down right now

[mechdriver]

Can someone explain or direct me to an explaination of what a DOS or DDOS attack consist of?

Thanks,
Mech

[foob]

DoS means denial of service. Simplest way is to flood a website with too many packets, so the website cannot handle it. Kind of like when too many users access a website and it slows down horribly.

There are many different types of packets one can use. Different ways a website handles them.

Bandwidth cost money, so THR was shutdown until something can be done.

Distributed DoS just means multiple machines are used to launch an attack. They are more effective because they can produce more packets to flood the website.

Technically speaking, any attack that causes the website to be unable to provide functionality is a denial of service attack. But it is usually associated with flooding attacks.

[Jart]

My favorite explanation of DoS, DDoS and DRDoS is found on Steve Gibson's site:

http://www.grc.com/dos/drdos.htm

It even has pictures so people like me can, if not understand it, at least understand more than if it didn't have pictures.

I wonder if a DDoS thread would qualify as a "zombie" thread?

[StopTheGrays]

Derek,

Thank you for working to get this issue resolved.

[grampster]

Sorry to see the attacks have not stopped yet. Thanks Oleg and Derek for all the work you do so that we no accounts can fritter a day and evening away from time to time with like minded souls....excepting fistful/scapegoat that is. (Just Kidding, just kidding....)

[springmom]

...and here you are

Reading this thread, I'm more grateful than ever to Oleg and Derek who deal with this stuff. Thanks, guys!

Springmom

[fistful]

Just for that, grampster, I now unveil my new signature.

[GoRon]

THR/APS sure does attract loonies who feel they need to attack us, what is up with that?

[GoRon]

Hah!! I have more posts than Fistful!!

That will give you something to do this afternoon

[fistful]

THR/APS sure does attract loonies who feel they need to attack us, what is up with that?

See, now Ron is picking on me, too.


Give me a few minutes to rack up the post count, Ron, I'll put you back in your place.

[Derek Zeanah]

OK, we're back up, and the firewall is telling me we're down to normal traffic patterns.

Feel free to close this thread, and thanks for allowing these off-topic threads, Mods.

[RNB65]

Can someone explain or direct me to an explaination of what a DOS or DDOS attack consist of?

A denial-of-service (DOS) attack is when an attacker floods a server with IP packets such as ping or SYN requests. The purpose is to overwhelm either the server's CPU or it's internet connection so it can't respond to legit users.

A distributed-denial-of-service (DDOS) is when an attacker uses many computers (sometimes thousands) to launch their DOS attack. They compromise computers by taking advantage of unpatched OS bugs and/or weak user passwords and gain remote control of the machines. Then they use the compromised machines to launch DDOS attacks from all over the world.

Unfortunately, denial-of-service attacks are very effective unless you've got a whole bunch of money to spend to fend them off. DOS attacks often come with an e-mail telling you where to send $$$ in order to get the attack stopped.

Here's a pretty good Wiki article with more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack

[mechdriver]

Thanks for the explainations.

[MD_Willington]

Hopefully you can figure out who was behind the DoS attack via IP lookup...

[txgho1911]

http://www.grc.com/dos/grcdos.htm
http://www.grc.com/dos/drdos.htm

Probably no chance of finding the original offending IP address for the attack.

[dionysusigma]

Wow. So there really are internet zombies, after all...

[fistful]

Hey...........

Don't make us........angry.

Brains............

[Mal H]

Originally Posted by Derek

Feel free to close this thread, and thanks for allowing these off-topic threads, Mods.

Looks like a good idea ... and you're certainly welcome.