DDoS: The Tool of Hacktivism

The cyber landscape, like the political landscape, has created a pressure vessel of activists looking for disruption. Since November of last year, it was reported that there had been nearly 6 billion data breaches. As businesses and governments brace for the notorious hacking methods of malware, ransomware and Trojans, it’s easy to forget about the “less shiny” techniques like Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS).

DDoS attacks are malicious attempts to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, service, or network by inundating it with a flood of Internet traffic. Unlike malware, DDoS is not designed to steal or hold your sensitive information hostage, but to cause disruption. Hacktivists are not necessarily motivated by monetary gain alone, but rather to send a message, cause inconvenience, and create distraction.