Can a brute force attack slow down a server?

Question

My friends Win2K server is constantly bombarded with password brute force attacks. Looking through his security event log I can see hundreds of failure audits against his administrator login.

Is this enough to slow his server down? His website runs slow and this is the only thing I can think of.

Answer 1

By bombarding a server with any request (in this case password guesses) a type of attack called Denial-of-Service (DOS) occurs. This type of attack is designed to limit services or completely shut them down.



This will 100% slow down any web application / web page.



I would suggest blocking the ip address of the attacker by modifying the TCP/IP protocol on the server. You can find step-by-step tutorials online that show you with screen shots exactly how its done.

Answer 2

Absolutely can slow things down. Check this site for examples on how to defend against it.........



http://www.webhostgear.com/240.html

Answer 3

yes it is as this requries memory and processing, well not so much memory.



You should be taking precautions if you know your getting hacked.