Degradation of Service Attack

What Does Degradation of Service Attack Mean?

A degradation of service attack is a type of denial of service (DoS) attack geared toward disrupting the service, speed and response time of a network or website. It is designed to degrade services of a target to its point before becoming partially or permanently unavailable.

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Techopedia Explains Degradation of Service Attack

A degradation of service attack is basically a DoS attack with slightly less intensity and severity. Like a DoS attack, a degradation of service attack works by employing a series of remote zombie or compromised computers that are infected with malware or a virus. These zombie computers simultaneously send a network/service request to the target system or website with the intention of slowing it down. Once successfully initiated, a degraded website or system becomes highly prone to a DoS attack.

Further, some hackers, malicious activists and even network/security administrators use degradation of service attacks to check or test the strength of a website/system against a full scale DoS attack.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…