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Distributed Denial of Service attack

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is an attack in which multiple compromised computer systems attack a target, such as a server, website or other network resource, and cause a denial of service for users of the targeted resource. The flood of incoming messages, connection requests or malformed packets to the target system forces it to slow down or even crash and shut down, thereby denying service to legitimate users or systems. Distributed Denial of Service Attacks have recently emerged as one of the most newsworthy, if not the greatest, weaknesses of the Internet. This paper attempts to explain how they work, why they are hard to combat today, and what will need to happen if they are to be brought under control. It is divided into four sections. The first is an overview of the current situation. The second is a detailed description of exactly how this attack works, and why it is hard to cope with today; of necessity it includes a description of how the Internet works today. The third section describes the short-term prospects, what can be done today to help alleviate this problem; and the final section describes the long-term picture, what will change to bring this class of problem under control, if not eliminate it entirely. And finally there are some appendices: a bibliography, giving references to original research work and announcements; a brief article on securing servers; and acknowledgements for the many people who helped make this paper possible.