Whats a distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack?
Because Web sites are built to handle a lot of traffic, it can take millions of simultaneous communications requests to have enough affect on the performance of the server for an attack. In a DDoS attack, tens of thousands or even millions of computers are used to send traffic to the target site all at the same time and repeatedly. As Sophos’ Graham Cluley wrote on his blog: “It’s a bit like 15 fat men trying to get through a revolving door at the same time–nothing can move.