What are some common tools or methods used by attackers to launch DDoS attacks?

[Ryaan J.]

please note me know what are some common tools or methods used by attackers to launch DDoS attacks?

[Rachel S]

What is a DDoS attack?

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) is a class of malicious cyber-attacks used by hackers or cyber criminals to prevent their targeted users from accessing a host system, network resource, or online service. DDoS attacks overload the target computer and its supporting resources by flooding it with hundreds of millions of unnecessary requests. Because attacks using DDoS come from separated or numerous sources or IP addresses, they differ from traditional Denial of Service situations.

⇒ Read more about DDoS attacks.

Standard DDoS attack method:

UDP Flood:
A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack in which a target is overwhelmed with many UDP packets is known as a UDP flood. This overloads the target, eating up resources and making it unreachable to authorized users. A shortage of resources is caused by the attack, which takes advantage of the target's requirement to react to UDP packets even while no application is actively listening on the targeted port.

SYN Floods: Using this technique, attackers attack the target system with many SYN (synchronization) requests, more significant than its capacity to process and react to them all. The target's resources are used up, and regular operations are interfered with.

HTTP Floods: Attackers overload a target web server with a massive volume of what appear to be valid HTTP requests, using up all of its resources and preventing it from responding to actual user requests.

IoT (Internet of Things) Botnets: Attackers reduce the resources of a target web server by flooding it with many acceptable HTTP requests, rendering it incapable of handling requests from actual users.

What have commonly used DoS/DDoS attack tools?

Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC)
An open-source stress testing program is called LOIC. Using a simple WYSIWYG interface permits protocol layer attacks on the TCP and UDP layers. Because of the original tool's popularity, copies have been made that enable assaults to be launched using a web browser.

High Orbit Ion Cannon (HOIC)
By enhancing its features and adding customizations, this attack tool was developed to take the position of the LOIC. The HOIC may launch targeted attacks that are challenging to defend against using the HTTP protocol. At least 50 persons must collaborate to launch a successful assault utilizing the program.
Slowloris: A program called Slowloris is made to launch a low-key attack on an individual host. It just requires a small number of resources to have a negative impact.

R.U.D.Y (R-U-Dead-Yet)
R.U.D.Y. is a different low-speed attack tool created to make it easier for users to launch assaults using a point-and-click user interface. The attack seeks to slowly overwhelm the targeted server by creating many HTTP POST requests and keeping those connections open for as long as possible.