A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a malicious attack that floods your web server with traffic.
It’s an attempt to send your server into downtime and prevent actual users from accessing it.
DDoS attacks, when unaccounted for, can lead to massive losses in the way of losing users.
So how do you protect yourself against a DDoS attack with so much at stake?
Fortunately, some free DDoS attack tools are perfect for this task.
Some of them will provide protective measures, while others will simulate a DDoS.
Best DDoS Website Attack Tools Online
- DDoS Attack
- PRTG
- LOIC
- Sucuri
- Ddosim (DDoS Simulator)
- OWASP HTTP Post
- Tor’s Hammer
- Goldeneye
- HOIC
- PyLoris
1. DDoS Attack
The DDoS attack is an excellent DDoS website attack tool for detecting an attack on your website.
Through the services provided by this software, you can monitor the event logs for all sources accessing your site.
In this way, you can safely detect and prevent DDoS attacks before they even happen.
This software is offered by SolarWinds and includes many different features. Through the application, you can detect DDoS attacks.
You can also respond to them in real time and conduct the necessary investigation.
You get a SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) with a community-sourced list of malicious DDoS clients.
In this way, it can identify all the interactions made with potential DDoS attackers.
The SEM also allows you to automate the responses to a DDoS attack.
These can vary from sending an alert to the owner to blocking the attacker and even shutting down the account.
Again, you can configure these through the in-built intuitive interface.
Finally, the SEM also offers you certain investigative tools that let you further probe into the situation.
SEM features a very simple searching experience that allows you to apply very specific filters.
2. PRTG
PRTG is a network monitoring software that’s best known in the field for its advanced capabilities and free DDoS protection.
It uses high-level technologies like WMI, REST APIS, SQL, and much more to detect and protect your website from attacks.
But PRTG Isn’t just a DDoS attack protection tool. Instead, it’s a complete network monitoring solution.
It monitors all of your IT infrastructures, including the devices, traffic, and applications. And the best part is that it doesn’t require any additional downloads.
A few of the features of PRTG include detecting how much bandwidth your devices take up and monitoring databases.
You can also manage your applications and get detailed reports on various parameters.
If you use certain cloud computing services, PRTG is a perfect choice.
It has a feature that lets you centrally monitor activity on all of your cloud services. So you don’t have to keep going back and forth
Additionally, PRTG lets you monitor all of your servers in real-time. You can monitor availability, capacity, reliability, and even accessibility.
3. LOIC
LOIC is an open-source code available for businesses to use against DDoS attacks. It’s a C# code that can send HTTP, UDP, and even TCP requests to the server. So it’s the perfect choice for testing the performance of your network.
It works by performing stress testing on your system to ensure that it’s working properly. It conducts several free DDoS attacks against your infrastructure.
If your system can handle it, you know that your website is prepared for actual attacks.
This code is also ideal for detecting any DDoS programs that attackers can use to target your computer.
By arming yourself against these programs, you can ensure that your system stays safe from DDoS attacks.
Additionally, LOIC does not hide the IP address of the attacker. And this is even in the case that the proxy server fails to work properly.
Low Orbit Ion Cannons are designed to conduct a stress test against your systems. It’s an open-source code that must be integrated into your website.
4. Sucuri
Sucuri is a free DDoS application that protects you against potential DDoS attacks.
It uses advanced technology such as an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and a Web Application Firewall (WAF).
This software is a complete malware and hack protection system. It keeps your website safe from malicious content and code via the Web Application Firewall (WAF).
The WAF filters out the most malicious activity and prevents hackers from getting into your system.
Additionally, Sucuri safeguards you from Zero-Day exploitation.
In case you don’t know, Zero-Day is a vulnerability found in software that is unnoticed or cannot be fixed by the software manufacturer.
Zero-Day vulnerabilities require new patches of the software to be updated.
Luckily, with Sucuri, managing these threats will rarely require you to create a new software patch.
What’s more, Sucuri protects you from DDoS attacks. It automatically blocks layers 3, 4, and 7 attacks against your system and sends you alerts when such an incident occurs.
Sucuri also keeps you safe from brute force attacks that aim to crack passwords. In this way, your website’s important credentials do not get leaked or hacked.
5. Ddosim (Ddos Simulator)
DDoSIM is a free DDoS attack simulator that creates attacks against your system. It’s a great way to test out your network’s vulnerability and prevent future DDoS attacks.
The way it works is that it has a code written in C++ that can be used against your website or application.
It must be used on the Linux OS and is best for stress-testing your site. It simulates a layer 7 DDoS attack against your network when you run the code.
That way, you can monitor just how well your system holds up against such an attack.
DDoSIM lets you create a full TCP connection to the target server. And the best part is that you’re not just limited to one type or a certain number of attacks.
Instead, you can customize the attack to better match your security goals.
Additionally, you can customize the code to perform application-specific DDoS attacks. But keep in mind that this is only a testing tool.
It cannot be used to protect yourself against such attacks or monitor and investigate them.
6. OWASP HTTP Post
OWASP HTTP Post tests the performance of your applications. In particular, it handles network performance tests. It is the best way to conduct a free DDoS attack against your system.
This software lets you distribute your software tools to other people. So it’s not just one cybersecurity expert that can access the software but multiple people on your team.
This leads to better correspondence. In addition, it ensures that everyone knows the security situation of your software.
Additionally, although the tool is completely free of cost, you can use it commercially without any issues.
Moreover, OWASP HTTP Post is the best way to test your system against application-layer attacks.
This is layer 7 on the OSI model, which only works against website applications. Hence, you can’t use it for network and transport-layer attacks.
Through this layer-7 protection tool, you can determine the capacity of your server.
For instance, when you conduct a DDoS attack, you get to know exactly how many requests your server can take before downtime.
7. Tor’s Hammer
Tor’s Hammer is a layer 7 free DDoS attack software, an exquisite choice of network protection software.
This online tool can target web applications and servers to show you just how much capacity the server has.
It works by sending browser-based requests to the target application, sending the server into downtime.
This testing tool is written in the Python coding language to create slow post-DDoS attacks. It can slow be accessed via Tor if you want to stay anonymous.
But be warned: this tool is very powerful. It can kill unprotected servers running IIS and Apache in the blink of an eye.
The code lets you create rich text markup through Markdown. And it has the functionality to convert URLs to interactive links without the aid of an external software developer.
Additionally, this tool holds HTTP Post connection and requests for up to 30,000 seconds.
In a nutshell, it’s one of the best choices for running a DDoS test against your server.
This will also tell you the maximum capacity of your server before it goes into downtime.
8. Goldeneye
GoldenEye is a Python-based app used to test the integrity and security of your web server.
It’s an HTTP DoS test tool that will conduct a free DDoS attack against your application via sending multiple HTTP requests.
This application is the best choice for load testing and checking the capacity of your server.
It tells you how many requests your server can handle before it completely crashes and goes into downtime.
In this way, you can take measures to enhance your server’s availability.
By using this tool, you can take up all the HTTP or HTTPS sockets that your application’s server provides.
It’s the best tool that can be easily manipulated, customized, and embedded via the Python language.
What’s more, this application allows for the random creation of user agents. This helps you prepare yourself better for DDoS attacks.
It also randomizes the GET and POST to acquire mixed traffic on the site.
Hence, you’ll know exactly how many requests it takes for your server to go down.
9. HOIC
High Orbit Ion Cannon (HOIC) is an open-course free DDoS tool that can simultaneously target multiple URLs.
It’s a tool that’s used to launch Distributed Denial of Service using HTTP requests.
With this tool, you can easily attach up to 256 websites via DDoS simultaneously. It’s a great way to understand how your website holds up against such attacks.
Additionally, you can slowly figure out how much capacity your server has through this tool.
HOIC has a counter that shows you how many attacks have been made against the website to aid you in this.
So you can count how many it takes for your server to go into downtime.
Additionally, you can customize the number of threads you want to use in the current DDoS attack. In this way, you’re more in control of what you test.
And the best part is that you can port this DDoS tool over to Mac OS or Linux. It has settings that let you change the severity of the attack.
10. PyLoris
PyLoris is a free DDoS attack tool online that lets you test out the integrity of your web server by conducting numerous DDoS attacks. It’s only meant for use as a security tool.
This DDoS tool runs on the Python computer language and supports Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.
It features the latest codebase to simulate a DDoS attack against your webserver. And it’s a great way to measure the energy of your network.
What sets PyLoris aside from every other DDoS attack tool is that it features an intuitive GUI. Most other tools don’t even have an interface.
Instead, it is just code that you can manipulate. Hence, an interactive user interface that’s easy to use is a definite plus point.
But what’s even more interesting is that PyLoris features the same level of customization as open-source code-based tools.
It lets you control how many threads each process gets assigned, with the limit being 50 threads. Each thread can hold 10 connections.
To summarize, this is a very user-friendly DDoS attack tool that is intuitive and customizable.
FAQs
What Is A DDoS Attack?
A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is an attack that targets the normal traffic of a web server or network.
DDoS attacks work by overwhelming the server with internet requests. This ultimately causes the server to be unavailable for actual users.
Which Is The Best Tool For A DDoS Attack?
The best tool for protecting your website from a DDoS attack is SolarWinds’ Security Event Manager (SEM).
It prevents the DDoS attack from happening and responds automatically to the attack.
What Are DDoS Attack Tools?
DDoS attack tools are used to either simulate a DDoS attack or protect from it. Some tools simulate Denial of Service attacks so that you can test your web server against them.
Others provide protective functionality as well as investigative benefits.
What Are the Types of DDoS Attacks?
DoS and DDoS attacks are of 3 types: volume-based, protocol, and application-layer attacks.
Volume-based attacks overwhelm the server’s bandwidth and are measured in bits per second.
Protocol attacks consume server resources or firewalls and load balancers. Finally, application-layer attacks aim to crash the server with multiple requests.
Conclusion
Protecting your website against DDoS attacks is a need of modern times.
However, your web server could be at risk if you’re not prepared against a Denial-of-Service attack.
Without even a basic level of security, your server will crash instantly.
But how do you know if your web server can withstand DoS or DDoS attacks?
Luckily, some tools are available online that let you simulate such attacks.
Other tools work by providing protective measures against the attacks. And they let you investigate further.
These were just a few of the free DDoS attack tools that are available for you to use to protect your website. You can surely find the right tool for yourself here.
