What Is a Website Stresser?

A website stresser (or stressor) is a tool that tests the capacity of a website or API to handle high levels of traffic and determine whether available bandwidth and CPU resources are enough to handle additional loads. These additional loads may include spikes in demand as well as traffic from a denial-of-service (DoS) attack or distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. Also known as an IP stresser, a website stresser directs large amounts of traffic at a website to see how it responds, how traffic impacts the user experience, and how effective defenses are at mitigating a DoS attack.

A booter is an IP or website stresser that’s maliciously used by a cybercriminal to overwhelm a website with traffic, causing it to slow down or crash. These on-demand tools offer DDoS-for-hire services that allow hackers with little experience and few resources to nevertheless mount devastating attacks against a target IP address. Sophisticated IP booter services offer a free IP stresser trial with YouTube tutorials and email support. Subscription-based packages include pricing that may cost as little as $20 a month, paid anonymously with payment methods like bitcoin or other cryptocurrency.

A website stresser uses a botnet — a network of thousands of malware-infected computers or devices — to send an overwhelming amount of traffic to a web server, web application, or API to see how well it performs. IT administrators running the stress test may determine the length of the attack time and choose different types of attacks, including TCP, UDP, and ICMP floods.

When choosing a website stresser, IT teams should look for a product with a user-friendly stresser panel, Layer 4 and Layer 7 attack capabilities, the ability to choose bypass methods around firewalls and other defenses, and the ability to operate with a high number of concurrents, or simultaneous attacks. To ensure that the website stresser is a legitimate service and not part of an illegal booter service, IT teams should choose sites that process standard payments rather than anonymous payments only via cryptocurrency. Some of the most popular legitimate stressers on the internet include LoadNinja, LoadView by Dotcom-Monitor, and Micro Focus LoadRunner Cloud, while StressThem, Nightmare Stresser, and Stresser AI are examples of popular services that may be used for nefarious purposes.

When used for legitimate purposes, a website stresser can help organizations to ensure their sites are prepared to handle normal traffic as well as surges and spikes, and that they have strong defenses against denial-of-service attacks. When hackers use website stressers for malicious purposes, they can launch DDoS attacks to disrupt a website and a company’s business operations, or to attempt to extort money.

To evade detection and mitigation, cybercriminals use a wide range of attack methods when launching DDoS campaigns. Most attacks fall into one of three categories:

• Volumetric attacks are designed to generate massive amounts of traffic that use up all the bandwidth of the targeted website or resource. As a result, legitimate users can no longer access the application or service. Volumetric attacks use amplification techniques that magnify the impact of an attack with little effort required from hackers. Common volumetric attacks include DNS amplification, UDP floods, and ICMP floods.
• Application-layer attacks, or Layer 7 attacks, target and disrupt web applications by establishing a connection with the target and then monopolizing transactions and processes to exhaust its resources. These attacks include low-and-slow attacks and GET/POST floods.
• Protocol-based attacks focus on vulnerabilities in internet communications protocols. Common protocol attacks include SYN floods, Ping of Death, and Smurf DDoS attacks.

To prevent DDoS attacks by botnets and illegal website stressers, IT teams must adopt a multilayered approach to DDoS protection that includes several key technologies.

• Firewalls and web application firewalls can block invalid traffic from known sources and malicious IP addresses.
• Security patches and updates must be applied regularly and diligently to address vulnerabilities in software and hardware that can be exploited by a DDoS attack or lead to a data breach.
• Rate-limiting techniques can limit the number of requests that a certain IP address can make within a specific time frame, helping to prevent web resources from becoming overwhelmed. Content delivery networks (CDNs) enable organizations to distribute traffic across multiple servers, minimizing the ability of attackers to target a single system with a website stresser.
• Monitoring and logging can help to identify unusual activity and enable IT teams to better understand how well their systems can weather attacks.
• Comprehensive solutions for anti-malware and data leak protection (DLP) are also important in any security program, as DDoS attacks are often used as a cover or distraction for other types of threats.