A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) is a large-scale DoS attack where the perpetrator uses more than one unique IP address or machines, often from thousands of hosts infected with malware. A distributed denial of service attack typically involves more than around 3–5 nodes on different networks. Since the incoming traffic flooding the victim originates from different sources, it may be impossible to stop the attack simply by using ingress filtering. It also makes it difficult to distinguish legitimate user traffic from attack traffic when spread across multiple points of origin. As an alternative or augmentation of a DDoS, attacks may involve forging of IP sender addresses (IP address spoofing) further complicating identifying and defeating the attack.

Protect Our Power is seeking an Educational Institution to develop information within this Topic for use by North American Electric Utilities. Contact Erick Ford at EFord@ProtectOurPower.org for more information or to recommend an Educational Institution.