Can I setup a DDoS counter attack?

Hi, when I'm playing video games, I often get DDoSed so their team can get the win. This is very frustrating as you may know. I notice when I'm getting DDoSed that it often takes a minute or two for it to actually lag me of the game. I was wondering whether I could use this time to identify the "DDoSer" and counter the attack by DDoSing him back when he is trying to DDoS me? Would this work? If it does work, can I setup a program or something which lets me automatically send a DDoS to the ip address which I am receiving all the garbage that he is sending to me to hit me offline? In other words, is there a program which will let me DDoS a ip address that is sending me all the rubbish automatically?
Also, How do I DDoS anyway so I can counter?
Thanks,
Ben

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack

Very hard to do anything I'm afraid.

1. You have no control over what is sent to you (what your router receives) so if someone can send a load of garbage at your connection and it fills your available bandwidth completely, that's what will (and does) happen.

2. DDoS tends to be from several (hacked/compromised) hosts which are part of a DDoS network. This could be a single host (IP address), or it could be hundreds of hosts (hundreds of IPs) spanning all parts of the internet, working in unison to create the attack.

3. Even if you could, sending garbage traffic to these hosts achieves nothing as it is highly unlikely that will not reduce (in any meaningful way) the garbage traffic they are sending to you. Also, the bandwidth you have available to you outbound is very minimal in the grand scheme of things, for any UK broadband connection currently.

Only option is to go with a provider who can offer dynamic IP addressing for your broadband connection, so you are issued a new IP address each time you connect. I'm also curious how who ever is DDoSing you is finding out your IP address. If you have a static one, then they may have just acquired it by some means (you told them it, they located you in a server log file somewhere, and because it's static, they know this IP will always be you and thus have an easy target). If you have a dynamic IP, it could make things a bit more trickier for them. If they are finding out your IP address from the gaming server you are connecting to (eg. the server discloses this information to all players), then going the dynamic IP address route is also going to be a complete waste of time.

I have no further positive advice to offer you. DDoS is a problem, and will continue to be so for years to come. When these attacks were prevalent a decade or so ago during my days on IRC, a trick I found was to firewall my connection in such a way that I limited the amount of reply traffic I sent back out during such an attack. This worked well to a point, but in the end, if the attack lasts long enough, your connection will eventually suffer and become unusable as a result.

Hello Astrocpu,

There are some very good (but quite expensive) routers on the market, such as the Draytek Vigor series.

These routers have the ability to counter DDoS attacks to some extent, and may help in your situation.

It's important to note, though, that there is little you can do to counter a determined attack without a lot of help from your ISP.

Good luck

Not being funny but your post slightly worryingly seems to be asking how to DDoS someone.

It is more likely you are being DoSed from 1 person on the game as opposed to multiple.

Try turning pings off - it could be they are just sending a shedload of ICMP to your IP address.

Failing that, get the IP address where the DoS/DDoS is coming from, stick it into an IP address whois, and report it to the ISP. Causing a denial of service against someone for malicious purposes is against terms of use for internet connections.

In reply to a post by Astrocpu:

Hi, when I'm playing video games, I often get DDoSed so their team can get the win. This is very frustrating as you may know. I notice when I'm getting DDoSed that it often takes a minute or two for it to actually lag me of the game.

What evidence do you have that you are actually a victim of a DoS /DDoS attack?

There could be other reasons why your are getting lag.

Edited by deleted (Thu 16-Oct-14 18:12:08)