The State Special Communications Service provides answers to the most common questions of Ukrainians regarding the fight against threats in cyberspace, the safe use of phones, the Internet and others. You often report an increase in the number of DDoS attacks. What is a DDoS attack and how does it work? Do they threaten personal data? Is it possible to protect against DDoS attacks?

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, DDoS attacks remain among the most common types of cyberattacks used by offensive hackers.

DDoS attack is an attack on the computer systems of an authority, organization, institution to disrupt the availability of the attacked web resources. Simply put, during an attack, a large number of external requests are created simultaneously (the number can be in the millions) that the attacked system cannot process them. As a result – there are malfunctions in its work or it stops working at all.

A DDoS attack, unlike a DoS attack, is carried out from several sources, not one. It is also worth noting that such attacks are mostly not aimed at individual citizens. However, the ultimate goal of criminals is to deprive citizens of access to important services, services and accurate information. Since the beginning of this year, websites of government agencies and banking institutions, telecom operators, energy companies, regional authorities, media, etc. a number of websites have been hacked by DDoS.

DDoS attacks are often done to spread panic and destabilize. It is sometimes used to hide destructive actions, for example when a DDoS attack acts as a cover for another type of attack. However, DDoS attacks do not pose a threat to citizens’ personal data. It is worth noting that hackers often use hacked devices to carry out DDoS attacks. For this reason, it is necessary to comply with the basic rules of cyber hygiene, use antivirus, update software on time, etc. is important. Source