Why do people do DDOS?

Question

Can they make a financial gain? or is it just so they can say they have brought down a network(s)

Thanks guys-so when performing this act the perps cant actually access the network?

Great answers many thanks-the people doing the attacks are already very skilled professionals-can anyone shed light on how the zombie pcs are "taken over"? TIA

Answer 1

Extortion is probably the most frequent reason. I don't know how successful it is but the targets would be sites that have a huge online presence and would greatly suffer if their site were inaccessible. My understanding is that gambling sites are common targets of this type of attack.

** Edit **

Denial of Service doesn't keep the "bad guys" away, rather it keeps the valid traffic from reaching the servers. The attacked servers receive so many invalid request that they can't respond, perform slowly, or simply crash. For a company that is primarily web based, having their customer base cut off is going to cost them a lot of money.

One thing to keep in mind here is that the extortion of sites could go unreported. Lets say for example that I was extorting "Site A". In my demands, I'd request payment to some untraceable account as well as explicit instructions that if they report this to the authorities I would continue the attacks. I might even require a regular payment schedule or I'd completely knock them offline for the next few months. I've got a whole network of zombie Microsoft Windows systems at my disposal and with just a portion I could easily interupt "Site A"s business. "Site A" would be inclined to pay as they don't really have an alternative. Of course if "Site A" pays, then they become an easier target in the future because they've already given in once.

Unfortunately finding a solution around all the bogus traffic could be more costly than the demands of the hacker and I'm sure they would keep their demands less than the alternative solution (i.e. setting up multiple data centers - redundancy, fail over, load balancing, replication/synchronization, etc...).

Answer 2

"Thanks guys-so when performing this act the perps cant actually access the network?"

No, they're simply flooding a server with a bunch of bogus requests in order to prevent it from carrying out its normal tasks.
An analogy would be if I had thousands of people constantly calling your cell phone. Legitimate callers trying to contact you (i.e., your friends and family) would be "drowned out" by the illegitimate calls.

Answer 3

You realise that you posted this on a popular public website that keeps IP logs. If you can't even get basic operational security right, why the hell would someone stick their neck out for you? Also, why the hell would someone help someone who can't even figure out how to google something before they ask a question in order not to look like a complete idiot? Advice: Go back to watching pokemon or whatever kids are watching these days or learn to do things by yourself.

Answer 4

because some people, indtead of using their knowledge to make the internet a better place, prefer to terrorise corporations to try and make a quick buck! a bit like the modern day version of holding tesco to ransom,.... gimmmee a million quid or i will poison all your milk!

Answer 5

Extortion.