Today, businesses across society depend on IT-based information systems. This applies to everything from credit card payments to traffic monitoring, patient records and essential functions such as electricity and water supply.

Technological developments also mean that we are more vulnerable to data breaches and the spread of malware, or if, for example, the network connection is interrupted or software stops working.

Attacks against websites and online services

A denial-of-service attack means that a website or online service is subjected to a surge in traffic from a large number of computers. The attack can cause the website or online service to perform poorly, slowly or not at all. Attacks can take different forms, but most often aim to make it difficult to use websites or online services.

Denial of service attacks cause disruption while they are happening, but the disruption is temporary and once the attack is over, the website will work as normal again.