Although quickly dealt with an Australian ISP was recently hit with a DDoS attack, which disrupted a large number of its customers.
Reportedly the outaged impacted Melbourne IT’s “web hosting, email platforms, and access to the company’s customer administration portal.”
Mark James, ESET IT Security Specialist, explains why DDoS attacks are so effective and easy to execute.
“DDoS attacks happen all too often these days.
“With so many devices capable of being commanded to request information from a particular IP or web address it’s really no surprise we see so many.
“So many more people are using the web as well: more phones, tablets, laptops and desktops all being used to search, communicate or integrate with others will of course increase the traffic flowing from one source to another.
“The problem for websites or indeed web admins is deciding at what point you’re doing something right and getting busy or under some kind of DDoS attack.
“Anyone these days could be the subject of an attack, it might be a means to extort money or voice an opinion or it may be a smokescreen to hide something else going on in the background.
“The simple fact is DDoS attacks are easy to instigate.
“The hardware, software and services are either easily created or easily rented making it fairly attainable for users of all expertise to partake or purchase.
“Defending against DDoS may not be as simple as it sounds, depending on your business model and the type of traffic you experience there may be manual and or automatic procedures in place to filter or block the offending traffic.”
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