DDoS
A Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack is when someone tries to overload your server with loads of requests from multiple sources. These attacks involve thousands of different machines trying to connect to your machine at once.
It’s simple, but problematic
With so many requests, the server will either slow to crawl or crash completely. The attackers might do this to blackmail you or simply in protest of your company.
These attacks can come from one person
While it’s possible for a huge group of people to work together to perform these kinds of attacks, that’s not usually how it works. Instead, the largest DDoS attacks have been through botnets. So the machines involved in the attack probably aren’t aware of what’s happening.
A botnet is where a hacker puts a virus on thousands of people’s computers and then uses those machines without the real owners’ knowledge.
You can protect yourself
Many server providers will offer DDoS protection, either by hosting your content in multiple places – lightening the load on any one machine – or by blocking suspicious traffic.