Information Security Management: Denial of Service

Information Security Management Coursework
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October 8, 2020
Denial of Service attacks
A denial of service (DoS) attack is where an online attacker, more popularly known as a hacker, prevents users of an online service from using that services' resources (Lau, Rubin, Smith & Trajkociv, 2000). It began in the 1990s as a means for electronic vandalism or online protests by "hacktivists." (Balaban, 2020).
A denial of service attack is also called a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack when executed on a much larger and widespread scale. It is characterized by preventing any use whatsoever of a site's or company's online digital resources by planting "ransomware." Recently, DDoS attacks have gained traction to extort money from owners of websites for return of the access to the domain (Balaban, 2020).
How many DoS attacks occur regularly?
A report published last February of 2020 found that 16 DDoS attacks occur every minute (Osborne, 2020). Considering most services, industries, and institutions are shifting towards more digital or online platforms due to the COVID-19 lockdown, DDoS attacks have only escalated in occurrence.
What are some of the most widely publicized DoS attacks that have occurred recently? Who was the target?
On August 27, New Zealand-based financial institution NZX Stock Exchange Broker was shut down for three days due to ransomware. On August 21, the...