Internet-based DOS attacks can more easily be distributed, meaning there can be multiple machines (often hundreds or thousands, some of them "enslaved" through viruses) sending communications to a particular website -- or technically, to the server on which the site is stored -- that simply overload the server's capacity and could cause it to crash or simply to provide communications that are too slow to be intelligible (Roebuck, 2005; Cross, 2008; Raghavan & Dawson, 2011). The possibilities and the distance involved make Internet DOS attacks more complex, but with the proper know-how they can be easier to achieve consistently for attackers (Roebuck, 2005).

Preventing DOS attacks can be all but impossible, especially in an Internet setting, but taking steps to ensure that a website/server can easily recover from a DOS attack and restore reliable service to users can help reduce the likelihood of that being targeted -- if the attack...
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