Security News > 2024 > March > FBI v the bots: Feds urge denial-of-service defense after critical infrastructure alert

The US government has recommended a series of steps that critical infrastructure operators should take to prevent distributed-denial-of-service attacks.

The joint guide, entitled Understanding and Responding to Distributed Denial-Of-Service Attacks [PDF], distinguishes between denial-of-service and DDoS attacks.

First up: volume-based attacks that aim to overwhelm a target with a massive amount of traffic, thus consuming all the available bandwidth so legitimate traffic can't access the website.

Second comes attacks that exploit vulnerabilities in network protocols, thus causing the website to malfunction or otherwise interfere with its performance.

The guide lists 15 best practices that organizations should put in place to protect against these attacks.

Plus, programs like employee training, incident response, and backup and recovery plans are always smart to have in place, and practice regularly, along with network redundancy to help maintain service availability in the event of a DDoS attack.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/21/fbi_ddos_advice/