The purpose of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is to overwhelm a target system, network, or website with a flood of traffic from multiple sources, rendering it inaccessible to legitimate users. This type of cyberattack aims to disrupt the normal functioning of the targeted resource, causing downtime and potentially significant financial losses or damage to reputation.
For example, an attacker might use a botnet—a network of compromised computers—to send a massive amount of traffic to a website, overwhelming its servers and causing it to crash. This can prevent customers from accessing the website, leading to lost sales and customer dissatisfaction.
To mitigate the risk of DDoS attacks, organizations can employ various security measures, including cloud-based DDoS protection services. These services can help absorb and filter out malicious traffic before it reaches the target system, ensuring that legitimate users can continue to access the resource. Tencent Cloud, for instance, offers a DDoS protection service that leverages advanced algorithms and global cleaning centers to defend against large-scale DDoS attacks.