Low-and-Slow Attacks

Attacks that send very small amounts of traffic — enough to keep connections open and exhaust server resources—while staying below the radar of volumetric detection tools. They are a form of application-layer DDoS attack: they exhaust the server’s capacity to handle requests rather than its bandwidth. See also the large file download attack, another quiet technique that uses legitimate-looking requests to take a service down. Slow-rate vectors are also used in direct-to-origin attacks, which bypass CDN and WAF protections by targeting the origin server.