How serious are DOS attacks?

El Moose Monstero · Post by **El Moose Monstero** » 2004-01-13 01:31am

Ok, maybe I did do a cursory search on this, but didnt find a clear definition - basically my webhosts have come under a DOS attack apparently, I dont know if they've succumbed to it or not, mainly cos I dont know what it is...

The server has been down all day, but I dont know whether this is a result of the attack or the countermeasures.

What is it (in simple terms)? How serious is it? Is it likely to result in me having to reload my website and all that?

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2004-01-13 01:34am

DoS is Denial of Service. It means that your website/ISP has been flooded by so many requests it can't keep up, so anyone who wants to visit your site can't load the page.

There's nothing you personally can do. Your website itself should be untouched, but when this is all over, make a backup anyway.

EmperorMing · Post by **EmperorMing** » 2004-01-13 01:49am

If your host has enough bandwidth, they can laugh it off.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2004-01-13 01:51am

There is also the problem of server load. If the server is being taxed too hard, (before the network connection is flooded) you can get numerous hardware failures.

This, again, depends on the server. Good hardware can easily survive a DoS attack, but no hardware can survive all DoS attacks.

El Moose Monstero · Post by **El Moose Monstero** » 2004-01-13 01:52am

Oh, I have a back up, just wanted to check the security of it all, reuploading takes about 3 minutes, but it never hurts to be informed, forewarned and all that...

Thanks for the heads-up.