What is a denial of service (DoS) attack?

A common way to try to disable a website or web service is known as a denial of service (DoS) attack. A denial of service attack occurs when the attacker can overwhelm a website with illegitimate requests to the point where it cannot handle legitimate ones. How the website and web server are designed impacts the degree to which DoS attacks succeed or fail.

Credits: Talking: Geoffrey Challen (Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo). Producing: Greg Bunyea (Undergraduate, Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo).

Part of the https://www.internet-class.org online internet course. A blue Systems Research Group (https://blue.cse.buffalo.edu) production.