Denial-of-service attack
Denial of service attack is a form of attack on computer setup that is designed to cripple the all activities of the computer. It achieves this by flooding it with useless traffic. Denial of service attack exploits the limitation of TCP/IP protocols (Gupta et al, 2010). Examples of denial of service attack are ping of death and teardrop attacks. In the current era of technology there are increased advance in technology so as cybercrimes. Cyber crimes are become more sophisticated because of the advance in technology (Karake-Shalhoub et al 2010). Many people suffer greatly from cyber crimes and for that matter measures should be put in place to prevent cyber crimes from taking place. Denial of service attack is an example of cyber crimes that companies suffer from.
The denial of service attack attacks the computer by giving it more load than it can operate. The attacker may use many computers to launch the attack on various computers in an office. There are particle numbers of URL that can be accessed at any given time (Shiffman et al, 2012). The attacker can give the comp more URL than they can operate. If one tries to open the URL to the server it becomes impossible hence the denial of service attack. The user is denied the chance to access the server because of the workload as a result of the irrelevant information provided. The attacker can use any computer in the office or outside the office to attack other computers. The computer used and the ones that are to be attacked are not well protected from such attacks. Such computers are generally weak in terms of security issues. The attacker takes control of your computer and uses it to send bulky information to a website or spam emails. The attack can also be generated by just one computed and not using many computers to generate the attacks (McDowell, 2009).
There are no effective ways to prevent the attack but measures must be put in place to avoid such attacks. The company should install antivirus to all the computers. The antivirus should not only scan and detect offline activities but it should be integrated. The virus should also monitor online activities; prevent all the spam from accessing the computer. It should also stop the user from accessing sites that are prone to attacks. The company should install firewall to deal with these cases of attacks taking the pattern depicted by image in figure 1. The firewall should be one of the best since advancement in the cybercrimes has made it more vulnerable to denial of service attack. The company should offer strict measures in handling the giving out of emails. Computers in the company should be able to filter emails so as to filter spam emails that are harmful to the computers.
Figure 1: illustration of possible prevention strategy
accessed from: http://int.search.tb.ask.com/search/AJimage.jhtml?&searchfor=denial+of+service+attack&p2=
The users can know if the attack is in process. The following are parameters that suggest if the computer is attacked; very slow network which is not very usual, not able to access a certain website, not able to access any website and dramatic increase in the number of spam. The office workers are advised to report if they have realized that they cannot access they files or certain website in their computers.
References
Gupta, P., Prakash, S., & Jayaraman, U. (2010). IT infrastructure and its management. New Delhi: Tata McGraw Hill Education.
Karake-Shalhoub, Z., & Al, Q. L. (2010). Cyber law and cyber security in developing and emerging economies. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
McDowell M. (2009). Understanding Denial-of-Service Attacks. US CERT. retrieved from https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST04-015
Shiffman, D., In Fry, S., & Marsh, Z. (2012). The nature of code. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar
