I’m sure you’ve seen programs claim they have DDoS Protection and I’ve mentioned it in my program reviews, but haven’t really explained what it means. DDoS Protection is a security measure put in place by a program’s host, or at times a third-party company to protect the website against distributed denial-of-service or DDoS attacks.
A DDoS attack is an intentional attempt to make a targeted website unavailable to visitors. The purpose is to halt the targeted website’s operation and services, and shutdown the system entirely. This is accomplished by sending dramatically increased traffic to the targeted website, slowing the server to a point where it refuses new connections until the server crashes causing the website to go down.
DDoS attacks are accomplished by infecting unprotected computers on the internet with malware or trojan viruses. After these “zombie” computers are infected the malicious programs usually sit idle on the host computer until triggered by the master computer run by the person performing the DDoS attack. At the time of the attack the “zombie” computers with malicious programs all send communication requests to the target of the DDoS attack until the target’s host server crashes. Often there are thousands of infected “zombie” computers across the world that simultaneously attack targeted computers, resulting in slowed response time, overload and eventual crashing of the target’s server. Below is a simple graphic showing a visual representation of an attack.
You may be asking how you can prevent DDoS attacks from happening. The first thing you can do is make sure that your computer is not a “zombie.” While protecting your personal computer ultimately does little to prevent DDoS attacks, if everyone would protect their computer this sort of attack would be impossible. Small steps can make a huge difference over time. Plus, who knows what other nasty features the malicious software on your computer could have that could put your personal information at risk. Always have an active, updated antivirus program running on your computer and do frequent scans for spyware, malware and viruses.
I recommend running either AVG Anti-Virus or Microsoft Security Essentials along with Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D on your computer. Utilizing multiple antivirus and spyware removal programs will reduce the chance of having your computer compromised and some of the programs pick-up items left behind by the others. However, if you have a website, or are a HYIP admin looking for hosting for your program, it is essential to take further steps. One of the red flags in my reviews for HYIP programs is whether or not the admin has taken the time to acquire and set-up adequate security for their program.
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