DDoS Attack Education Simulator
Learn how Distributed Denial of Service attacks work and how to defend against them
Simulation Controls
Normal Traffic Rate (requests/sec):
10
Attack Intensity (requests/sec):
0
Server Capacity (requests/sec):
50
Number of Attack Sources:
100
Start Normal Traffic
Reset Statistics
Server Status
Normal
Requests/Second
0
Success Rate
100%
Server Load
0%
Dropped Requests
0
Mitigation Strategies (Toggle to Test)
Rate Limiting
IP Blocking
Traffic Filtering
Load Balancing (+50% capacity)
Traffic Visualization
Legitimate Traffic
Attack Traffic
Server Capacity
Request Queue & Server State
Educational Information
What is a DDoS Attack?
A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack overwhelms a server with traffic from multiple sources
Unlike regular DoS attacks, DDoS uses many computers (often compromised "zombie" machines)
The goal is to make a service unavailable to legitimate users by consuming all available resources
DDoS attacks can target bandwidth, server resources, or application vulnerabilities
Types of DDoS Attacks
Volumetric Attacks:
Flood the network with massive amounts of traffic (e.g., UDP floods, ICMP floods)
Protocol Attacks:
Exploit weaknesses in network protocols (e.g., SYN floods, Ping of Death)
Application Layer Attacks:
Target specific web applications (e.g., HTTP floods, Slowloris)
Amplification Attacks:
Use third-party servers to amplify attack traffic (e.g., DNS amplification)
How This Simulation Works
Normal Traffic:
Represents legitimate user requests to your server
Attack Traffic:
Simulates malicious requests from distributed sources
Server Capacity:
Maximum requests your server can handle per second
When overwhelmed:
Requests exceed capacity, causing timeouts and service degradation
Mitigation Strategies
Rate Limiting:
Limits requests per IP address to prevent abuse
IP Blocking:
Identifies and blocks known malicious IP addresses
Traffic Filtering:
Analyzes patterns to distinguish legitimate from malicious traffic
Load Balancing:
Distributes traffic across multiple servers
CDN & Cloud Protection:
Absorb attack traffic before it reaches your server
Anomaly Detection:
Uses ML to identify unusual traffic patterns
Real-World Impact
DDoS attacks can cost businesses thousands to millions of dollars per hour
Major attacks have taken down banks, gaming services, and government websites
Attack sizes have reached over 1 Tbps (terabit per second) in recent years
Botnets can consist of millions of compromised IoT devices
Protection requires layered defense strategies and continuous monitoring