Find an example of a real-world, documented DoS attack that has occurred in the last two years. Describe the attack, being sure to include any damage or impact this DoS attack had on the company/organization
Summarize the efforts used and solutions found to combat DoS attacks.
Sample solution
Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell.
In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.
God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.
Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.
To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.
References
Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.
Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies, 4(8), 487.
Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.
Sample Answer
Sample Answer
Example of a DoS Attack: GitHub DDoS Attack (2018)
One notable example of a DoS attack that occurred in the last two years is the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack against GitHub in 2018. GitHub, a popular web-based code hosting platform, experienced one of the largest DDoS attacks in history, impacting its services and causing disruptions for several days.
The attack, which took place in February 2018, targeted the GitHub platform with a massive volume of traffic directed towards its servers. The DDoS attack was carried out using a technique called memcached amplification, where attackers exploited misconfigured memcached servers to amplify the volume of traffic sent to the target. This resulted in an overwhelming amount of traffic flooding GitHub’s servers, leading to service interruptions and slowdowns.
The impact of the attack was significant. GitHub experienced intermittent outages, making it difficult for developers and users to access and collaborate on code repositories. The attack disrupted the availability and reliability of GitHub’s services, affecting millions of users worldwide. Additionally, the attack caused a surge in internet traffic, potentially impacting other online services as well.
Efforts and Solutions to Combat DoS Attacks:
To combat and mitigate the impact of DoS attacks, organizations employ various strategies and solutions. Some of the common efforts used to address DoS attacks include:
Traffic Filtering and Rate Limiting: Organizations implement traffic filtering mechanisms to identify and block malicious traffic associated with DoS attacks. Rate limiting techniques are used to restrict the amount of incoming traffic from specific sources, preventing overwhelming server loads.
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): CDNs are used to distribute website content across multiple servers and data centers. By employing CDNs, organizations can handle increased traffic and distribute it geographically, reducing the impact of DDoS attacks.
Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS): IPS solutions monitor network traffic, detect suspicious patterns or anomalies, and automatically take action to block or mitigate potential DoS attacks. They can identify and filter out malicious traffic before it reaches critical infrastructure.
Cloud-based DDoS Protection Services: Many organizations leverage cloud-based DDoS protection services provided by specialized vendors. These services utilize advanced detection algorithms and large-scale infrastructure to absorb and filter out malicious traffic, ensuring the availability of services during an attack.
In the case of the GitHub DDoS attack, the company quickly responded by collaborating with their infrastructure partners and leveraging their extensive DDoS mitigation capabilities. They implemented various countermeasures, such as rerouting traffic, increasing their server capacity, and collaborating with ISPs to block or filter out malicious traffic. These efforts enabled GitHub to gradually mitigate the attack and restore service availability over time.
It is important to note that combating DoS attacks requires a multi-layered approach, combining proactive measures, network monitoring, rapid incident response, and continuous improvement of security infrastructure. Organizations must remain vigilant, regularly update their security measures, and stay informed about emerging attack techniques to effectively combat DoS attacks.
