What is a DDoS attack?

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is designed to force a website, computer, or online service offline. This is accomplished by flooding the target with many requests, consuming its capacity and rendering it unable to respond to legitimate requests. A DDoS attack differs from a Denial of Service (DoS) attack because it is distributed. The malicious traffic comes from a variety of different IP addresses, often the members of a botnet.

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What is a botnet?

A botnet is a network of private computers that hackers have infected with malicious software. The hackers then control these computers remotely without the knowledge of their owners. Cybercriminals might then use the computers they’ve infected to flood other servers with traffic to shut down targeted websites. They might also use infected computers to mine cryptocurrency, flood the internet with spam, send phishing emails in an attempt to trick victims into giving up their personal and financial information or send waves of traffic to sites that earn money from all these visits.

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