What is a DDoS attack?
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). A Denial of Service (DoS) attack is a malicious attempt to make a server or a network resource unavailable to users, usually by temporarily interrupting or suspending the services of a host connected to the Internet.
What causes a DDoS attack?
There are five motives for DDoS attacks: revenge, competition, politics, war and cloaking. Practically any organisation or individual can become a DDoS target.
The most common motives for DDoS attacks that affect the OntheNet network is competition and revenge.
Revenge:
Employees, customers, litigants, disgruntled hackers
Competition:
DDoS can harm your online gaming presence
DDoS can harm reputation
DDoS can halt operation
DDoS can damage sales
Politics:
Political organisations
Terrorists
War:
Many countries have significant DDoS capabilities
Cloaking Criminal Activity:
Cloak other hacking efforts (distraction)
Used to prevent companies from warning customers of fraud etc.
What can I do to prevent a DDoS attack?
Do not antagonise anyone online. This includes, but not limited to, bullying, harassment, trolling or anything that may incite anger towards another individual. A large percentage of DDoS attacks target online game players and is likely related to behaviour in that environment.
You should ensure that your Skype username has nothing to do with your other online names such as online gaming names, forum names, or anything that can be used to link a Skype username to you. If a person finds your Skype username they can use it to find your IP address and once they have your IP address you can be DDoS’d with little to no effort.
If you’re running a business there may be some changes within your network that can be made to reduce the impact of a DDoS attack and we encourage you to contact our Technical Support Team to discuss this.