DNS Attacks?

[specialist]

Can someone please explain to me what a DNS attack is and a denial-of-service attack. I currently oversee my home network and the network at my small company. How would I go about protecting myself from both of these types of attachs? Both at the home and business level? Thanks!

[The Goatboy]

The easiest way I can explain (imo) is this is an attack you usually see geared toward big companies (ie. MS, etc.). Usually rogue, infected machines (lots of them) are directed to generate tons of traffic (web requests, pings, etc) towards the public address(es) of unsuspecting companies. The overload of traffic bogs down or crashes the equipment (routers, switches, servers) at said company, thereby limiting or cutting off legitimate traffic to said site. Unless you really PO'd the wrong person, who happens to be/know a hacker I don't think you really have anything to worry about. I tend to think it's less of an issue with private/small business customers with broadband connections because the IP addresses given out by ISPs are usually DHCP leases and not static addresses like the big companies have. I know on my home connection that my public address changes periodically as an example, and I have to use dyndns to monitor my public address at all times incase it changes. Hope that answers your question.

[specialist]

Yep, sure does. Thanks!

[onsitehelper]

I would also suggest you disable ping requests in your router.
This way people cant do a continues ping with large packet sizes to your connection.