Denial of Service Attacks and the Emergence of Intrusion Prevention Systems

In an age of political unrest and war, the internet is being used as a source of constant communication and even attack. Since 2000, Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks have been prevalent across the internet. These attacks which can be launched from pretty much anywhere, against anyone, have cost private companies and other organizations millions of dollars resulting from downtime. The purpose of this paper is to give an in depth look at what exactly denial of service attacks are, what forms they come in and how they can be stopped. The contents of this paper are based off of the Sans Reading Room white paper Denial of Service attacks and the emergence of Intrusion Prevention Systems.