What is DDOS? What is a DDOS Attack?

What is DDOS? It stands for Distributed Denial of Service. 

What is a DDOS Attack?  An attack involving the tactic of distributed denial of service.

A DDOS Attack is one of the most basic, and effective, hacking techniques. The attacker uses distributed requests, sometimes hundreds of thousands at the same time (including from malware-infected computers of unsuspecting third parties), to overload a target Web site. This in effect shuts down the target, preventing normal customers from using it, and therefore creating a "denial of service."

Attackers can have a variety of motives, from the desire to send a public political message to use of DDOS as part of a sophisticated cyber crime scheme. For a tutorial and DDOS attack trends and news, see the other posts on this site.