FreeBSD6 Unleashed

Denial of Service (DOS) Attacks

In modern parlance, “security” in networking refers to three factors: Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (or C.I.A.). Thus, even though Denial of Service (DOS) attacks don’t directly involve the security of a system or the integrity of its components, defending against them is still central to the subject of network security.

DOS attacks don’t involve any compromise of a system’s security or privacy. Rather, they are simply brute-force floods, sending so much traffic over a network that legitimate traffic is lost in the shuffle. The goal is often to crash the server through sheer overwhelming volume of data and number of requests. These kinds of attacks are much harder to defend against than directed ...