Hackers Beware

Chapter 6. Denial of Service Attacks

You come home from work after a long day at the office and the phone rings. You pick up the phone and no one is there. So you hang up, and immediately the phone rings again. After several times of doing this, you stop answering the phone, but the person keeps calling over and over again. The next morning when you go to work your boss says, “I tried calling you last night, but the phone was busy.” You actually weren’t on the phone, but an attacker was able to use up all your resources, so that legitimate calls did not come through. This is an example of a Denial of Service attack. In this case, the attacker ...