Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks have been a prominent and evolving threat since the late 1990s. Here’s a brief history and overview of DDoS attacks:
1. Early DDoS Attacks: In the late 1990s, DDoS attacks started gaining attention. Attackers used tools like Trinoo and Tribe Flood Network (TFN) to launch coordinated attacks by leveraging a network of compromised computers, known as botnets. These attacks overwhelmed targeted websites or networks with massive traffic, rendering them inaccessible.
2. The “Mafiaboy” Incident: One of the most high-profile DDoS attacks occurred in 2000 when a 15-year-old hacker known as “Mafiaboy” targeted major websites, including Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, and CNN. This incident drew significant media attention and raised awareness about the impact of DDoS attacks.
3. Evolution of Attack Techniques: Over the years, DDoS attack techniques have become more sophisticated. Attackers began employing techniques like SYN flooding, ICMP flooding, UDP flooding, and HTTP-based attacks. They also exploited vulnerabilities in protocols, amplification techniques, and botnets consisting of compromised computers to launch more powerful attacks.
4. Botnets and IoT-Based Attacks: The rise of botnets, networks of compromised devices, expanded the scale and impact of DDoS attacks. Botnets are typically created by infecting devices with malware, allowing attackers to control them remotely. The emergence of insecure Internet of Things (IoT) devices has provided attackers with a larger pool of potential botnet nodes.
5. Memcached Reflection Attacks: In 2018, a new type of DDoS attack known as Memcached reflection attack gained attention. This attack exploited vulnerable Memcached servers to generate high-volume traffic, resulting in record-breaking attack sizes exceeding one terabit per second.
6. Application Layer Attacks: While traditional DDoS attacks focus on overwhelming network resources, application layer attacks (Layer 7) target the application or web server itself. These attacks aim to exhaust server resources or exploit vulnerabilities in web applications, making them harder to detect and mitigate.
7. DDoS-for-Hire Services: In recent years, the emergence of DDoS-for-hire services, also known as booter or stresser services, has made launching DDoS attacks more accessible to non-technical individuals. These services allow anyone to rent a botnet and launch DDoS attacks against specific targets for a fee.
To defend against DDoS attacks, organizations employ various mitigation techniques such as traffic filtering, rate limiting, traffic diversion through Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), and utilizing DDoS mitigation services. Network administrators and security professionals continually adapt their strategies to counter evolving DDoS attack techniques and ensure the availability and resilience of their systems.