Is DDosing Illegal? Everything about DDos Attacks

A few months ago, I was going through the analytics of my website to see its performance but suddenly I saw that my website is getting millions of traffic.

I was so happy and I called my partner to inform them that, but after some time he found our website was getting malicious traffic and I got panicked and I started researching about it.

While researching it, I got to know about the few terms DDOS attack and Ddosing but the question that stuck with me:is ddosing illegal

That’s the reason I have created in post, here I have shared all about the DDoS attack including the type of ddos attack, its legal consequences, and lots more.

Now let me first clear your doubts about the: is ddosing is illegal or not.

Is a DDos Attack illegal? Consequences to perform Dos Attack

Yes, It is illegal and prohibited by the Government, and performing a DDosing attack is an act of cybercrime as per the law enforcement agencies and by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Cybercriminals or persons who are committing a computer crime may face imprisonment charges of a five million dollars ($5,00,000) fine and ten years of jail.

Now let’s understand in detail the ddos attack & how to prevent ddos attacks

What is a Ddos Attack?

What is a Ddos Attack?

DDOS stands for  Distributed denial of service attack, and it is a process of sending an overwhelm amount of internet traffic or packets of spam data from various sources to a web server with the motive of hampering the website performance.

It is a form of cybercrime and if any person found behind launches a DDoS attack by hiring the service to conduct an attack he faces imprisonment of 10 years in prison and gets a fine of ($5,00,000).

How does a hacker perform DDoS? 

Assume that every webiste has the capacity to handle the number of users and process their requests for example there is a webiste that can handle 500 user requests in 5 minutes, but suddenly it’s started getting 700 requests in 5 minutes, so what would happen now?

The webiste will not be able to process the data or maybe become slow, but now imagine this webiste is getting 7000 requests in 5 min, now what would happen?

Your website will crash completely and your users will feel frustrated if you run an e-commerce store, your sales will go down and in the end, you will get a loss.

The same goes with DDOS attacks when DDoS attackers send you overwhelming bot traffic requests per second to your site with the motive to hamper its performance and in the end, your website gets crashed 

Most of the time people hire a person to performing DDoS attacks, no matter whether doing this as a joke on your friend or carry out a DDoS attack is a crime, you will get punished as per the fbi and international law enforcement.

How Does a DDoS Attack Work?

Till now you have understood about the DDOS attacks their types and their legal consequences, let’s jump right into understanding how ddos attacks work.

DDoS is a process in which the attackers use a single server to send an unusual amount of internet traffic and useless packets of data to the target of a specific server or computer to hamper the site’s performance.

How Does a DDoS Attack Work

In the DDoS attack, the attacker controls many computers and servers with malicious software and servers, which are then collectively known as a botnet, and they use these to flood the target machine with packets of data.

As a result, there is a sudden spike in the incoming traffic and eventually, it shuts down the victim of a DDoS attack server once the incoming packets of data exceed the capacity of the victim server then it causes the DDoS attack.

The main problem with these ddosing attacks is that it’s become very difficult to find the origin of the attack because all we can trace is the source IP address of bots. 

As we have discussed above that there are different types of attacks can take place – it depending on OSI model layer that has been targeted  so let’s see the types of DDOS attack based on the OSI Model

Types of DDoS Attacks

There are many variations of the DDoS attack that hackers perform to damage and hack the webiste for others, and some are easy to fix while others to complex.

Here are the common types of DDoS that you should know.

Volumetric attacks

When it comes to DDoS attacks most associate it with volumetric attacks and it is the most common and known, attack also known as floods, this attack involves sending as much traffic as possible to overwhelm the server and saturate its bandwidth.

and these voluntary attacks typically produced by using amplification techniques DNS amplification is one of the the most common techniques that attackers use to perform DDoS attacks and this process of attacking the website is unavailable to its intended users.

Application attacks 

Application attack is another variation of the DDoS attack in this attack, attackers target the top layer of the open system interconnection (OSI) models.

As they focus on the top layer of the application it becomes easier for them to conduct DDoS attacks and execute the DDoS attack successfully.

Another thing that you need to know is that these attacks request to download the massive amount of data per second that uses the server resource

Protocol attacks

Most of you know that there are specific languages and rules that computers use to communicate with each other’s in computer languages these are called IP/TCP.

These rules are mostly used for exchanging data & information on the internet, now some people try to disrupt and exploit the rules and take advantage of them these are called the attacker

Most of the in-application attacks target the top layer, particularly the 3 and 4 layers called the OSI model on network devices like routers.

It is also an SYN flood attack which is a type of protocol attack. An SYN flood attack will target the TCP protocol of the internet by interrupting the 3-way handshake.

SYN Attack

How to identify the victim of a ddos attack?

This is one of the most important but unfortunately, it is not easy to track know someone launches a DDoS attack as the network of a botnet comprises thousands of machines.

But here are some of the things that can help you know whether someone launches a DDoS on your site.

Slower the website speed

One of the things that you will notice when you are the victim of a DDoS attack is: that your website loads very slowly as it attacks the web servers but in most cases the website crashes.

If you want to check the website speed you can visit the Google page speed insights tools, it will show you the speed of the website which will help you to determine the website speed.

503 service unavailable error

If you want to check whether your website has been attacked with DDoS, try to open your website but see the 503 service unavailable error, then there might be a chance that someone executed the DDoS attack on your site.

The 503 services unavailable means that your web server has lost the capacity to process the user request, but sometimes this error also means that your server is temporarily down for maintenance you are facing this issue all the time it’s better to contact the respective international law enforcement partners

How to Protect Website from DDoS Attack?

As we’ve discussed before, there are a few ways that you use to identify but that not accurate ways that’s the reason it is important to focus on how can we prevent from the ddos and cyber attack

We can start by checking the status of the firewall of our web application or server. We can configure it so it somewhat detects any dos attacks and stops them.

Following are some tips you can take to make sure you are protected against dos attackers:
  • Keep your firewall settings updated. You’d be surprised how many people don’t have their firewall properly configured and their cyber security not properly optimized. You should get your cyber security configured by an internet administrator who knows what they are doing.
  • Keep track of your web traffic activity. It’s pretty common to tell that something is wrong when you notice a sudden spike in the incoming traffic. A lot of damage can be prevented if DOS attacks get recognized early on.
  • Make sure your network is secured from every end so no margin of error remains. Use best practices and if you aren’t sure how to do so, it’s highly recommended to hire staff with advanced cybersecurity degrees or a professional company to handle it for you.

How To Report A Ddos Attack?

If you’ve been a victim of a cyber crime of dos attacks, you should report it to your internet service provider with any evidence you might have.

You should also contact your local department in case you feel threatened.

Your local police department will be able to help you further. In the case of web applications, you should contact the support of your hosting provider and also let them know of the cause.

DOS attacks are not to be taken lightly and you can surely sue the attacker, as a lot of damage can be caused and service can be interrupted for users.

Is DDoSing Illegal in the U.S?

DDoSing is an Illegal cybercrime in the United States. A DDoS attack could be classified as a federal criminal offense under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The use of booter services and stressors also violates this act.

And most countries have similar laws but for the international DDoS, it depends on whether the victim can push for the case to be heard under their laws, since the law was broken in that country, regardless of the laws elsewhere (an example of this, not strictly DDoS, but still digital to another country would be the pirate bay case).

Between countries that have signed it, the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime could also apply if the DDoS attack was planned by a group of people (very likely), even if the source country doesn’t have a specific law against DDoS attacks.

DDOS Attack – Legal consequences

Distributed DOS attack is illegal as defined in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of the United States and the attacker can face imprisonment for up to 10 years as well as fine charges in millions.

The owners of the exploited server which acted as bots can also sue the criminal.

However anonymous users argued on the White House’s website that it could be considered a part of political activism due to it being very similar to the Occupy movement.

Is DDosing Illegal per US Title

  • 18: Crimes and Criminal Procedures: Part 1 : Crimes: Chapter 47: Fraud and False Statements: Sections 1029 and 1030.
  • According to the ECP Act, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984.
  • Cyber Security Enhancement Act of 2002, the Patriot Act (which may have terminated), and a few others.

Not only that, According to the UK National Crime Agency(NCA). The Computer Misuse Act 1990 makes it illegal to purposefully impede a PC’s activity or get access to a program/information on a PC.

Is DDoS Illegal, Even If You DDoS Someone from Another Country?

As we said earlier, DDoS is illegal worldwide. So, it does not matter which country you belong to.

Is DDoS Illegal, Even If You DDoS Someone from Another Country?

Yes, it is illegal everywhere and deemed a cybercrime. Most of the countries have direct laws against it.

Let’s suppose that a country doesn’t have a specific law on it but it has signed the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, it will have to comply with the other countries in case a DDOS attack originated from it.

Is It Illegal To Ddos Someone’s Wifi?

It doesn’t matter if you are ddosing a server, personal computer, or someone’s WIFI.

As long as the type of attack and the technique is some form of DDos such as sending a large number of syn packets or spam data.

If you do it without the consent of the victim, legal action can be taken against you such as a prison sentence.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is The Full Form Of DDoS?

DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service.

Are DDoS Attacks Illegal In The U.S?

Yes, these attacks are illegal and prohibited by the Government, You’ll be imposed a five million dollars ($5,00,000) fine and ten years of jail if you found the suspect of a DDoS attack.

How To Report DDoS Attacks?

You can contact your ISP(Internet Service Provider) or web host to prevent this attack. And if you want a serious action against DDos attack you can simply file a case in a national internet crime agency.

Will A VPN Stop DDoS?

Yes, a VPN (Virtual Private Network) can prevent any DDoS attack. Because it changes your IP address and assigns you a new IP address remotely by using your data traffic. Due to different IP addresses, the attacker won’t be able to find your actual server’s location. So, VPN stops DDoS attacks.

Are DDoS Attacks Dangerous?

Many people do not take these attacks seriously. Because they think hackers can’t steal any information by this attack but these attacks can damage an organization’s reputation, productivity, and uptime.

Which Is More Dangerous DOS Or DDoS?

DDoS attacks are more dangerous than DOS attacks. Dos can be blocked easily because one system is used in DO. DDoS can’t be stopped easily because different devices send packets from different locations.

Conclusion – Is DDosing Illegal

Yes, participating in any kind of dossing attack is illegal as defined by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, if a person is found in launched a DDoS attack may face imprisonment charges of a five million dollars ($5, 00,000) fine and ten years of jail.

From this post, you get completed knowledge about DDoS and how to prevent them, if you still have any questions regarding ddosing, please let me know in the comment section 

Hi, I'm a former Research Assistant, a Science Scholar, and the founder of technomantic.com. My first priority is providing best solution to consumers regarding their query. I love to read and practice meditation almost every time. I love writing, drafting articles, and helping students in publishing their research papers.

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