What is a Denial-of-Service (DoS) Attack?

A cyber attack is an unapproved attempt to gain unauthorized access to a

computer system to size, modify, or steal data.

Protecting systems, networks, and programs f rom digital attacks is known as

cybersecurity. These cyberattacks intend to gain access to, change, or destroy
sensitive information, extort money f rom users, or disrupt normal business
processes. One such attack is the DoS attack. The full form of DoS attack is Denial-
of-Service.

What is a DoS attack?

A denial-of-service (DoS) attack overloads a machine or network to render it
inoperable. Attackers accomplish this by sending more t raffic than the target can
handle, causing it to fail and rendering it unable to serve its regular users. Email,
online banking, websites, and any other service that relies on a targeted network or
computer are examples of targets.

Unlike a virus or malware, A DoS attack does not require the execution of a specific
program. Instead, it takes advantage of a f law in how computer networks
communicate.
Famous DoS attacks
The Microsoft attack: Microsoft mitigated the most significant DDoS attack
recorded in November 2021, attacking an Azure client with a throughput of 3.45
Tbps and a packet rate of 340 million PPS. In addition, the use of DDoS to demand
ransom payments for stopping attacks — or not launching them in the f irst place —
increased in 2021.

The Google attack: Google’s Security Reliability Engineering team measured a

record-breaking UDP amplification attack originating f rom several Chinese ISPs
(ASNs 4134, 4837, 58453, and 9394) in 2020 which remains the largest bandwidth
attack that Google is aware of.

The AWS attack: Amazon’s AWS Shield service was credited with mitigating the
largest DDoS attack ever recorded, a 2.3 Tbps attack in mid-February 2020. The
incident was revealed in the company’s AWS Shield Threat Landscape [PDF], a
report detailing web attacks mitigated by Amazon’s AWS Shield protection service.

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What is the main goal of a DoS attack?

A DoS attack attempts to disrupt the availability of web applications. Unlike other
types of attacks, A DoS attack is designed to slow or shut down a
website rather than steal information.

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In this blog, we will be discussing the DoS attack in brief, but before proceeding any
further, let’s go over the topics we’ll be covering in this blog:

What are the dif ferent types of DoS attacks?

Resource exhaustion

Flood attack

Crash attack

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack

How do DoS attacks work?

 DoS vs. DDoS attacks

How might you tell when a computer is under a DoS attack?

How to prevent DoS attacks?

What are the different types of Dos attacks?

There are several kinds of denial-of-service attacks:

Resource exhaustion
Resource exhaustion attacks are computer security exploits that cause the
targeted program or system to crash, hang, or otherwise interfere. They are a type
of denial-of-service attack, but they differ f rom distributed denial-of-service attacks,
which involve f looding a network host with requests f rom multiple locations.

Resource exhaustion attacks cause the targeted infrastructure to consume all of its
available memory or storage resources, slowing or stopping the service entirely.

Flood attack
In a f lood attack, attackers send a large volume of t raffic to a system, preventing it
f rom inspecting and allowing permitted network t raffic. An ICMP f lood attack, for
example, occurs when a system receives an excessive number of ICMP ping
commands and has to use all of its resources to respond.

Flood attacks send an enormous number of packets that overwhelm server

capacity. The Firebox can defend against various types of f lood attacks, such
as IPSec, IKE, ICMP, SYN, and UDP.

Crash attack
Crash attacks seek to altogether disable the monitor by causing it to fail or run out
of resources. Like the overload attack, the crash attack has two phases: the f irst in
which the attacker crashes the monitor, and the second in which they proceed with
an intrusion.

Crash attacks are less common when cybercriminals send bugs that exploit f laws in
the targeted system, causing the system to crash. Crash and f looding attacks make
it impossible for legitimate users to access online services such as websites, gaming
sites, email, and bank accounts.

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is a type of DoS attack in which the
t raffic used to overwhelm the target is spread across multiple sources. When an
attacker exploits this method of attack, you cannot stop the attack simply by
blocking the source of t raffic.

This type of attack exploits the specific capacity limits that apply to any network
resource, such as a company’s infrastructure that supports its website. During this
attack, an attacker will send multiple requests to the attacked web resource in order
to exceed the website’s capacity to handle various requests. Thus, preventing it
f rom functioning correctly.

DDoS attacks commonly target the following targets:

Websites for online shopping

Online gambling establishments (Online Casinos)

Any company or organization that relies on online services

How do DoS attacks work?

Denial-of-service attacks typically target high-profile organizations’ web servers,
such as banking, e-commerce, media companies, and government entities.
Perpetrators target organizations’ assets in one of two ways: by f looding their
networks with large amounts of t raffic or sending malicious data such as bugs that
cause a crash.

Whatever method an attacker uses, the goal is to bring the network or machine
down. If the DoS victim is, for example, an internet or cloud service provider for
others, additional networks or assets that the DoS attackers did not specifically
target may also be impacted.

Let’s take an example to understand the working of DoS attacks in a much better
way. Assume you want to order food f rom an e-commerce site. Your computer
sends a small data packet to the website. The packet functions as a “hello.” In
essence, your computer says, “Hello. I want to visit you. Please allow me to enter.”
When the server receives your computer’s message, it responds with a brief
statement that essentially says, “OK.” “Are you for real?” “Yes!” says your computer
and communication are established. The website’s homepage then appears on your
screen, and you can explore it . As you click restaurants, place orders, and conduct
other t ransactions, your computer and the server continue to communicate.

DDoS vs. DoS attacks

Let’s t ry to understand the difference between DDoS and DoS using a tabular
format:

DDoS DoS

Only a single system targets

In a DDoS attack, multiple systems
the victim’s system in a DoS
target the victim’s system.
attack.
Victim PC is loaded f rom the
Victim PC is loaded f rom the data
data packet sent f rom a
packet sent f rom multiple locations.
single location.
DDoS attacks are more rapid than DoS DoS attacks are slower than
attacks. DDoS attacks.
DDoS attacks are dif f icult to track DoS attacks are simple to
down. track down.
DDoS attacks enable an attacker to DoS attacks have less traffic
f lood the victim network with massive volume than DDoS attacks.
amounts of traffic.

The primary distinction between DoS and DDoS attacks is that DDoS
attacks use multiple internet connections to knock the victim’s
computer network offline, whereas DoS attacks use a single
connection.
How might you tell when a computer is under a DoS
attack?
While distinguishing an attack f rom other network connectivity errors or high
bandwidth consumption can be problematic. But, for clarity and ease, you can look
for some of these characteristics that may indicate an attack is underway.
 The following are signs of a DoS attack:

Unusual slow network performance, such as long f ile or website load

times

Inability to load a specific website, such as your web property

An unexpected loss of connectivity among devices on the same

network

A high volume of email spam.

How to prevent DoS attacks?

Organizations can take the following steps to protect against and prevent denial-
of-service attacks:

Analyze network traffic: Network t raffic can be monitored and analyzed using
a f irewall or intrusion detection system. Administrators can configure rules to
generate alerts for unusual t raffic, identify t raffic sources, or drop network packets
that meet specific criteria.

Create and practice a DoS attack response plan: The key is to create
and practice a DoS attack disaster recovery plan covering communication,
mitigation, and recovery.

Improve your security posture: This includes hardening all internet-facing

devices to prevent compromise, installing and maintaining antivirus software,
establishing f irewalls configured to protect against DoS attacks, and employing
robust security practices to monitor and manage unwanted t raffic.
 Reduce attack surface area: One of the best ways to mitigate DDoS attacks
is to reduce the surface area that an attacker can attack, limiting attacker options
and allowing you to build protections in a single location.

Monitor traffic: Businesses can sign up for a service that detects and redirects
abnormal t raffic f lows associated with a DoS attack while allowing regular t raffic to
f low through the network.

Deploy Firewalls: A good practice is using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) to

protect against attacks such as SQL injection or cross-site request forgery that
attempt to exploit a vulnerability in your application.

WEAK KEYS
Definition

The strength of the encryption function E K (P) may differ significantly for
different keys K. If for some set WK of keys, the encryption function is much
weaker than for the others, this set is called a class of weak keys. The attack
technique that succeeds against the keys in the class WK is called
a membership test for the class. For example, if the test uses differential
cryptanalysis, then it will be called a differential membership test.

Theory

Suppose the key space has k bits, so that complexity of exhaustive key
search is 2k. Suppose there exists a class of weak keys of size 2f, with a
complexity of the membership test of 2w. If 2w≤2f, exploiting weak keys is
more efficient than using the exhaustive search. In other words, if the choice
of the key of the cryptosystem is restricted to a weak-key class, the attack
succeeds if it is faster...