What is a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Attack?

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Attack

A Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack is a type of DoS attack that leverages multiple compromised devices, often part of a botnet, to overwhelm a target system with traffic or requests, rendering it unavailable to legitimate users.

Because the attack comes from numerous sources, it is harder to detect and mitigate compared to a traditional DoS attack. DDoS attacks can cause significant downtime and financial losses.

Defenses against DDoS include using content delivery networks (CDNs), traffic filtering, and employing scrubbing services that analyse and filter out malicious traffic.