DDoS or “Distributed Denial of Service” attacks are meant to disrupt everything—your network and your website—by overwhelming it with traffic. Bad actors use this method to seek revenge, extort money, or for some other type of gain including financial or political advancement, causing massive service and operating disruptions, which affect not only your profits but also your reputation. DDoS attacks create hundreds upon thousands of PC botnets—think of them like an army of zombie computers— that attack your network. Web response times slow down and actual users (like your team or your customers) can’t gain access.
Typically, hackers do this by invading one computer, usually with a phishing email, and then the malicious software on the affected devices sits dormant, waiting for the command from cybercriminals to flood a particular network or website with a barrage of requests.