Overview#
Attack that disrupts availability of a service or system. Can be volumetric, protocol-based, or application-layer and often mitigated with filtering and scaling.
Core objectives#
- Establish shared definitions of Denial of Service for security, engineering, and leadership teams.
- Connect Denial of Service activities to measurable risk reduction and resilience goals.
- Provide onboarding notes so new team members can quickly understand how Denial of Service works here.
Implementation notes#
- Identify the primary owner for Denial of Service, the data sources involved, and the systems affected.
- Document the minimum viable process, tooling, and runbooks that keep Denial of Service healthy.
- Map Denial of Service practices to standards such as ISO/IEC 27001, NIST CSF, or CIS Controls.
Operational signals#
- Leading indicators: early warnings that Denial of Service might degrade (e.g., backlog growth, noisy alerts, or missed SLAs).
- Lagging indicators: realized impact that shows Denial of Service failed or needs investment (e.g., incidents, audit findings).
- Feedback loops: retrospectives and metrics reviews that tune Denial of Service continuously.
Related practices#
- Align Denial of Service with defense-in-depth planning, threat modeling, and disaster recovery tests.
- Communicate updates to stakeholders through concise briefs, dashboards, and internal FAQs.
- Pair Denial of Service improvements with tabletop exercises to validate expectations.