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What are the differences between DoS and DDoS? You’ll be surprised to find out
The terms DoS and DDoS might sound extremely similar because there is a ‘D’ missing from the two acronyms, but it turns out that there are several differences between the two that you should know about. First of all, the full form of DoS and DDoS are as follows:
- DoS: Denial of Service
- DDoS: Distributed Denial of Service
Now that you know the differences between the two terms as far as their full forms are concerned, what are the primary differences between the two in terms of functionality?
DoS
A DoS attack means that one computer and one internet connection is being used to flood a server with packets (also known as TCP/UDP). The point of such a denial of service attack is to overload the targeted server’s bandwidth and other resources. As a result, this will make the server inaccessible to other computers, meaning that whatever form of content that was being loaded by the server, ranging from a website, to a hosting service will not be visible to other computers.
DDoS
While some would say that a DDoS attack is in most ways similar to a DoS attack, the results are quite different. Instead of one computer and one internet connection being used to overload a targeted server, the DDoS attack utilizes several computers and connections. The computers behind such an attack are often distributed around the whole world and will be part of what is known as a botnet. The core difference between a DDoS attack and a DoS attack is that in DDoS attack the target server will be overloaded by hundreds or even thousands of requests, involving several computers and internet connections, whereas a DoS will involve a single computer and a single internet connection for all these requests
One of the reasons why DDoS attacks have been widespread over the course of months in contrast to a DoS attack is because it is much difficult for a server to withstand the overloading attributes of a DDoS attack. Since several computers and internet connections are working in unison to bring down the server, the objective intended to being achieved is much simpler than one would expect.