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What is DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service)?

An attack that floods a target server or network with traffic from multiple sources to overwhelm it and deny service to legitimate users.

DDoS attacks use thousands of compromised devices (botnets) to generate massive traffic volumes. Types include volumetric attacks (flood bandwidth), protocol attacks (exploit protocol weaknesses), and application layer attacks (target specific services).

Mitigation includes CDN/DDoS protection services (Cloudflare, AWS Shield), rate limiting, geo-blocking, traffic analysis, and over-provisioning. DDoS attacks are common and can target any internet-facing service. Protection should be part of every production architecture.

Related Terms

CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery)
An attack that tricks authenticated users into submitting unwanted requests to a web application they are logged into.
Cryptographic Key Management
The practices and procedures for generating, storing, distributing, rotating, and revoking encryption keys securely.
Content Security Policy (CSP)
An HTTP security header that controls which resources a browser is allowed to load for a web page, preventing XSS and data injection.
API Security
Practices and mechanisms for protecting APIs from unauthorized access, data breaches, and abuse.
Encryption
The process of converting readable data into an unreadable format using algorithms, reversible only with the correct key.
Session Hijacking
An attack where an adversary takes over a legitimate user session by stealing or predicting the session identifier.
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