Soon after the Internet became a household word, so did “virus”. People learned that they had to protect their computers and email inbox or risk data loss, identity theft or malicious activity to their home machines. Over the last decade the internet has grown by leaps and bounds, and companies of every size now conduct business online.
While the software world has fought diligently to reduce the number of affective attack on the personal computer at home through anti-virus programs, hackers have turned their attentions to that which is most vital, but often not very well protected – the hosted website. A variety of tactics are being used by hackers against websites without regard to the size or industry of the business or organization. An American-based Internet security agency recently reported that Internet threats rose by two-thirds in April of 2009.
In general terms, hackers use denial-of-service (DoS) or distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to tie up processor resources rendering the computer useless to you, the user. DoS/DDoS attacks can manifest in a number of ways. The target computer may be forced to reset numerous times consuming processor resources and incapacitating the machine. These attacks can also disrupt your service by obstructing communication with end-users.
