Compare the difference in DoS and DDoS attack methods

DoS and DDoS are both tools used by hackers to disrupt online services to cause serious effects on websites, servers, VPS,… However, the attack method of DoS and DDoS is dissimilar. Therefore, comparing the difference between these two attack methods is extremely important to help IT, administrators, to identify which are malicious attacks and which are small attacks. From there, they have a plan to build a prevention system to prevent large targeted attacks.

How does DoS work?

The main target of a DoS attack is usually virtual servers (VPS) or web servers of banks, e-commerce sites, etc.

Once the target is established, the hackers focus on shifting the focus of the DoS attack through over-capacity of the virtual server system, or web server. Currently, there are two common methods of denial of service attacks:

A flooding attack occurs when the system receives traffic that exceeds the maximum load threshold, causing the system to slow down and eventually stop. again. Common forms of Flooding attacks include:

• Buffer overflow attacks: this is the most common form of DoS attack. Buffer overflow can cause the webserver to consume all available hard disk space, memory, or CPU time. This form usually makes The system’s processing ability becomes slow, causing system crashes leading to a denial of service.
• ICMP flood: ICMP flood attack will take advantage of misconfigured network devices. It first sends spoofed packets to ping every computer accessing the target network, then amplifies the network traffic. This attack is also known as a smurf attack or ping of death.
• SYN flood: often called a three-way handshake but only connects host and server. The server receives a request to handshake, but the handshake is never completed. Continue until all open ports are saturated with requests and there is no room left for legitimate users.

The crashing attack exploits systems or services, this attack takes advantage of errors in the target then causes the system to crash or be severely damaged, causing inaccessibility or suspension of use it.

• Vandalize or alter configuration information
• Sabotage the physical layer or network devices such as power supplies.
• Prevent real users from accessing a service.
• Occupying network bandwidth and flooding the network system (flood), then the network system will not be able to provide other services for normal users.
• Interrupts responses to a system or user.

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a form of malicious attack that disrupts the normal traffic of a targeted server, service, or network by overwhelming the target or facility. surrounding infrastructure by a large amount of Internet traffic.

DDoS attacks are effectively achieved by using multiple compromised computer systems as the source of attack traffic. The machine to be mined can include computers and other networked resources such as IoT devices.

When DDoS, hackers can use your computer to attack other computers. By taking advantage of security holes, hackers can gain control of your computer. They then use your computer to send large amounts of data to a website or send spam to certain email addresses. This is a distributed attack because the attacker uses many computers, including yours, to perform the Dos attack.

How does DDoS work?

Volumetric attacks: This type of DDoS attack uses high traffic to overflow network bandwidth.

Protocol attacks: A type of DDoS attack that focuses on exploiting the server’s resources.

Application-layer attacks: Type of attacks targeting web applications. This is considered the most sophisticated and dangerous type of attack.

• Overwhelm websites or servers with a large number of requests, make the system unable to function anymore.
• Crash the server system making it inaccessible to users.
• Interrupt work, reduce work efficiency because the network request cannot be fulfilled.
• Directly affecting the business’s finances (losing revenue and costs to fix the problem).
• Highly technical DDoS attacks can steal important data from your customers.

DoS attack

• In a DoS attack, only one system targets the victim system.
• The targeted PC is loaded from data packets sent from a single location.
• DoS attack is slower than DDoS.
• Can be blocked easily because of using a system.
• In a DoS attack, only a single device is used with the DoS attack tools.
• A DoS attack is easy to track.
• Traffic in DoS attacks is less than in DDoS.
• The types of DoS attacks are: - Flooding attacks - Crashing attacks that exploit systems or services

DDoS attack

• In DDoS, multiple systems attack the victim system.
• The targeted PC is loaded from data packets sent from multiple locations.
• The DDoS attack is faster than a DoS attack.
• It is very difficult to prevent this attack because many devices are sending packets and attacks from many locations.
• In a DDoS attack, multiple bots are used to attack at the same time.
• DDoS attacks are difficult to track.
• A DDoS attack allows an attacker to send large amounts of traffic to the victim network.
• Types of DDoS attacks are: - Volumetric attacks - Protocol attacks - Application-layer attacks

Protecting the website against DoS and DDoS attacks is essential in today’s industrial context, especially with the increasing scale of cyber attacks. Many businesses today have used CDN (Content Delivery Network) and WAF (Web Application Firewall) as effective methods to help them prevent and solve website security problems. These solutions help them save time and maximize security costs for information technology infrastructure in enterprises.

VNETWORK provides many combined security solutions, helping to enhance comprehensive protection, suitable for many types of businesses and sizes of each enterprise.

CDN system, Multi CDN in 32 countries (with more than 2,300 PoPs) around the world. In addition, VNETWORK’s CDN is also a strong alliance with all the world’s leading CDNs such as Akamai, Fastly, Cloudflare, Alibaba Cloud, Stackpath, Tencent Cloud, CDNetworks,… and Europe’s leading CDN service Asia like VNCDN. VNETWORK provides anti-DDoS traffic (up to 2,600Tbps). At the same time, Web Socket support is suitable for all types of businesses and delivers content quickly to users around the world.

In addition, VNETWORK’s CDN has used an algorithm to determine the user’s location to send a response from the nearest server, significantly reducing response time, increasing the loading speed of the website, thereby helping businesses overcome problems. slow connection speed, expand bandwidth traffic, increase website load capacity at the same time.

Coming to VNETWORK, businesses can feel secure experiencing website security services with Cloud WAF systems located in more than 8 countries. Thus, your business will be protected from today’s common vulnerabilities by examining all requests and responses from the website.

Besides, VNETWORK also helps you to analyze in detail sources, types of attacks, and other factors and provides more specific information than conventional WAF systems. Not only that, to minimize illegal access, we allow you to have full control over the content, time, IP address,… that users can access. Together with a modern SOC (Security Operations Center) room, it will monitor 24/7, promptly detect and prevent attacks. Helping businesses’ websites operate effectively and safely.

If you are being attacked or want to experience comprehensive Anti-DDoS and DoS services with Cloud WAF system and Asia’s leading CDN technology, please contact VNETWORK immediately at the hotline: (028) 7306 8789 or contact@vnetwork.vn or email to sales@vnetwork.vn for expert support and consultation.