However, individual bogus requests are not enough to overload the targeted servers, with their websites and services, and put them out of action. In return, this server sends a response to the IP address used. How do DDoS attacks work?Ĭarrying out a DDoS attack on a company’s data network is surprisingly simple in principle: The hacker sends a request to a name server on the internet - but instead of using their own IP address, they use the one of their intended victim, such as a server. The attackers have then achieved their goal, because the operators of the sites and services in question have no chance of “simply” reactivating these sites. According to the six-monthly NETSCOUT Threat Intelligence Report around 4.4 million DDoS attacks were recorded in the second half of 2021, bringing the total number to 9.75 million in 2021 - that’s one attack every three seconds.Īnd if you take a look at Wikipedia, you’ll discover that in a DDoS attack it’s usually impossible to block the attackers without completely cutting communication with the network. The companies affected reads like a Who’s Who of the internet world: Amazon, eBay, Twitter, Netflix, Spotify, and many others have already been victims of DDoS attacks.Ĭurrent figures show that DDoS attacks have become an enormous threat to companies of all kinds. DDoS attacks are often only stopped after a requested amount of money has been handed over to the attackers. This form of white-collar crime, in which ransom payments are often demanded, is currently one of the biggest cyberthreats. In addition to our example of a DDoS attack on several German ministries mentioned at the start, cybercriminals mostly aim to inflict targeted financial damage on companies - and they even actively offer this as a service. They aim to crash the servers, computers, infected IoT (internet of things) devices, or other components of the targeted data network - resulting in the websites and services on these servers becoming inoperable or no longer accessible at all.

With a distributed denial of service or DDoS attack, cybercriminals intentionally overload internet sites - with immense force. Read on to learn what a DDoS attack is, how hackers plan and implement one, and how you can protect yourself from such an attack. But you can also be indirectly affected by such a DDoS attack. You might assume that we as private individuals tend not to be affected by such DDoS attacks because cybercriminals primarily target the servers and websites of public authorities, research institutes, and large companies. Security experts confirmed that this attack was what is known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack where government servers were overloaded, resulting in the corresponding pages being no longer accessible. In May 2022, Bloomberg reported that several German government websites couldn’t be reached because some federal ministries had been hit by cyberattacks.

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