Learn more about how ZPA improves your security posture and keeps your users from falling victim to all the latest cyberattacks, including DoS and DDoS.
In a denial-of-service attack, a hacker uses a program to flood a server with malicious traffic. The requests that make up this traffic appear to come from legitimate users, so the server validates request after request. In effect, “service” is “denied” to legitimate users due to the resulting loss of bandwidth and network resources.
The attacked system or data becomes unavailable to users who need it. DoS attacks are often used for extortion because, for example, a business that can't provide its service to customers can lose revenue and suffer reputational harm. In this sense, DoS is similar to ransomware, but the hostage is the victim's service, rather than their data.
Where a DoS attack comes from only one source, a distributed denial-of-service attack, or DDoS attack, streams fraudulent requests from multiple sources at once. Typically, a perpetrator will leverage a group of internet-connected devices, sometimes on a global scale, to flood the target server, which can overwhelm it much more easily than a DoS attack would.
Such a group of infected computers is called a botnet. Botnets operate in a synchronized manner, awaiting instructions from an attacker at a single IP address to launch a flood attack. These attacks are usually scheduled to begin at a specific time and can last hours or even days.
A server facing a DoS attack can simply close the single connection delivering the attack. DDoS attacks are much more dangerous and difficult to mitigate because the influx of traffic comes from multiple sources at once..
What’s more, bad actors are now using internet of things (IoT) devices to make their botnets even more dangerous by cutting down on manual processes. Namely, they can use IoT devices to make it much easier to synchronize their botnet devices, increasing the effectiveness of their attacks.
DDoS attacks are much more common than DoS attacks, mainly because DDoS attacks are so much more difficult to close off, and thus can be carried out for a longer period of time.
Cloud service providers often fall victim to DDoS because of their inherent vulnerability to such threats. Here are a few more recent ones that made headlines:
Infrastructure providers tend not to filter route advertisements, which tell people how to get from one place on the internet to another. More importantly, they also tend not to filter the packets to verify traffic’s source. These two conditions make it easy for bad actors to send attack traffic to a target.
Attackers are generally motivated by three things: hostility toward the target, extortion, and a desire to pickpocket someone while service is being denied to them. While there is no early warning sign of a DoS attack, a savvy security professional can detect traffic a malicious actor is sending to determine whether you’re a viable target or not.
The actors will send out a large number of requests, such as to different parts of a website, to see if the web servers are vulnerable to a DoS attack. These early web “tremors” are a sign that your organization may come under attack.
With proper network security monitoring in place, your cybersecurity team can analyze network traffic and uncover patterns across packets that are clear-cut signs of attack. To identify whether you’re under attack in real time, you need to observe the metadata from your routers and switches—a task more easily done with a quality monitoring tool.
There are four main types of DoS attacks that aim your to exploit or extort systems and data:
Here are some specific DDoS attack examples to remember:
DoS or DDoS attacks could strike at any time, but with proper best practices in place, you can ensure your organization has all the necessary tools and protocols for strong defense.
Here are five ways to prevent a DoS attack:
Poor security posture and visibility can open the door not only for DoS and DDoS attacks, but also other threats such as malware, ransomware, spear phishing, and more. To keep your organization secure and maximize your chances of effective DoS and DDoS mitigation, you need proper DoS and DDoS protection. Here are some ways you can lower your chances of getting “DoS’d” or “DDoS’d”:
When it comes to zero trust, only one vendor delivers zero trust that’s born in the cloud. As it happens, it’s the same vendor that partners with the best XDR architects so you can detect threats across all your endpoints, clouds, and data. That vendor is Zscaler.
Zscaler is the only security service provider with a platform strong enough to defend against today’s latest threats, including DoS and DDoS attacks. Zscaler Private Access™ (ZPA™) is part of the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange™, the world’s top-rated and most deployed security service edge (SSE) platform.
ZPA’s unique design is based on four key tenets:
ZPA provides a simple, secure, and effective way to access internal applications. Access is based on policies created by the IT admin within the ZPA Admin Portal and hosted within the Zscaler cloud. On each user device, our Zscaler Client Connector is installed, which ensures the user’s device posture and extends a secure microtunnel out to the Zscaler cloud when a user attempts to access an internal application.
Adjacent to an application running in a public cloud or data center, ZPA places our App Connector, deployed as a VM, which is used to extend a microtunnel out to the Zscaler cloud. The Z-Connector establishes an outbound connection to the cloud and doesn’t receive any inbound connection requests, thereby preventing DDoS attacks.
Within the Zscaler cloud, a cloud access security broker, or CASB, approves access and stitches together the user-to-application connection. ZPA is 100% software-defined, so it requires no appliances and allows users to benefit from the cloud and mobility while maintaining the security of their applications—benefits unachievable with legacy, on-premises firewalls.
Learn more about how ZPA improves your security posture and keeps your users from falling victim to all the latest cyberattacks, including DoS and DDoS.
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