DDOS attack: What it is, how it affects websites, social media platforms, and tips to stay safe

DDoS cyberattack

Ahead of his much-touted conversation with former US president Donald Trump, Elon Musk said his social media platform X was under a DDoS attack. The tech billionaire said that even though X had done extensive testing to combat any tech mishaps, X was attacked which led to a delay in the conversation. Here we explain what is a DDoS attack, how it affects websites/online services and what one can do to stay safe.

What is a DDoS attack?

DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service and is a cyberattack meant to disrupt traffic on a website on an online service. According to cybersecurity research company CheckPoint, this is done by flooding the target with many requests, consuming its capacity and rendering it unable to respond to legitimate requests.

Think of it as a popular cafe or restaurant. On routine days, there is a set number of customers that it can handle. But if the restaurant was under a DDoS attack, then there would be a massive crowd with thousands of people steaming in demanding service. Suddenly, the staff at the restaurant gets overwhelmed and the legitimate customers can’t get a table. That’s what a DDoS attack does — floods the website or social media platform with thousands of users and puts a massive strain and thus slowing down or crashes the website.

All websites have a capacity for handling user requests and when a DDoS attack happens, the website's performance suffers, and it may become completely inaccessible to users.

How to identify a DDoS attack?

The most common trick is if one notices a a sudden drop in website or service performance. There are certain red flags that one should look out for. For starters, if there is an unusual spike in traffic, especially at off-peak hours, or consistent traffic patterns that seem artificial.

Further, if there is a surge in traffic originating from a single IP address or a group of IP addresses with similar characteristics. There can also be an overwhelming number of requests targeting a specific page or application on your website.

How does a DDoS attack work?

One of the most common DDoS attack is when a server is flooded with a large number of HTTP requests. Like when users press the refresh button on a website simultaneously, the server gets overloaded.

There are also volumetric attacks which create congestion by devouring the bandwidth of internet. Botnets are used to send large amounts of data to a target creating huge traffic, which results in a crash or slowing down of the website.

Elon Musk

What happened during the Trump-Musk conversation?

A couple of hours before the much-talked about conversation was to begin, Musk said “there appears to be a massive DDOS attack on