Denial of Service(DOS)

When referring to computer science the purest mean of the phrase 'Denial of Service' was as it sounds, denying service or access to those were not authorized. Today Denial of Service takes on a whole new meaning instead of keeping computer secure it's a tool used to cause destruction. DoS (Denial of Service) is an attack in which an internet resource, network, or computer is rendered useless. This attack is accomplished by sending an unmanageable amount of data that causes systems to overload and sometimes crash. The targeted system could be anything from a singular computer(although not a very useful attack), to IRC servers, email services, or websites. The from or method of the attack can vary as a DoS attack is not particular, but the result is always the same. The victim is slowed down, some might say artificially, and the resource is then either completely unavailable or lacking the speed to accomplish anything in a reasonable amount of time. The following are the more common ways in which a system is slowed or stopped(Wikepedia Encyclopedia):

1. Consumption of computational resources, such as bandwidth, disk space, or CPU time

2. Disruption of configuration information, such as routing information

3. Disruption of physical network components

The DoS attack is most often directed to servers which are flooded with useless traffic which then brings the entire network to it's knees. Like viruses there are security fixes that are created to protect against the attacks but as new security measures come out, just like viruses, new DoS attacks are developed. As servers have rapidly grown in size and ability the attacks have had to grow as well. The result is Distributed Denial of Service attacks or DDoS. Some common forms of DoS attacks are:

1. Buffer Overflow

2. SYN

3. Teardrop

4.