What DOS Attacks are and how they work

DOS Attacks
Denial-of-service attack is an attempt is an attempt by a hacker to prevent users accessing web related services such as websites, email and other online services.

The most common type of denial-of-service attack is where the attacker floods a server with information, when this occurs the server will block the legitimate users from accessing services provided by the server (as web servers are usually scripted to only deal with a certain amount of requests to prevent overloading) and will usually give the legitimate users an error message saying there is 'too many connections' or something similar. This is how it gets the name “denial-of-service attack” as the service denies you access

Another common type of DOS attack is where an attacker launches an attack on your email account , usually your email account has a specific quota which limits the amount of data you can store in your account. By sending large or many messages to the account the attacker can fill the entire quota with spam messages preventing the legitimate users from sending you an email

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack
In a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, an attacker may use your computer to attack another computer. By taking advantage of security vulnerabilities or weaknesses, an attacker could take control of your computer. They could then force your computer to send huge amounts of data to a website or send spam to particular email addresses. The attack is "distributed" because the attacker is using multiple computers, including yours, to launch the denial-of-service attack.

Ways to prevent DOS attacks
There are no effective ways to prevent being the victim of a DoS or DDoS attack, but there are steps you can take to reduce the chances that an attacker will use your computer to attack other computers:
- Install and maintain anti-virus software

- Install a firewall, and configure it to restrict traffic coming into and leaving your computer

- Follow security practices for distributing your email address

- Check your e-mail account regularly

Denial-of-service attacks

For this assesment I am going to be researching and publishing a report on DOS attacks