HOIC

HOIC, or High Orbit Ion Cannon, is a free, open-source denial-of-service tool released by the online activist group Anonymous in 2010 as a successor to LOIC. It is designed to overwhelm a target web server with HTTP requests, potentially making a site unavailable for a period. The program runs on Windows and provides a graphical interface that lets a user specify one or more target URLs and a set of booster packs, which are collections of strings intended to increase attack traffic. Attack parameters such as the number of concurrent threads and the choice of boosters can be adjusted to influence the load generated against the target. HOIC supports multi-target campaigns and the use of multiple boosters to amplify demand on the server, though its effectiveness depends on the target’s bandwidth, defenses, and the scale of the attack.

The tool gained notoriety during political protests around 2010–2011 and has since been discussed in security literature as an example of how user-friendly tools can lower the barrier to carrying out denial-of-service attacks. Because HOIC relies on overwhelming legitimate requests, it can be mitigated by standard DDoS defenses, including rate limiting and traffic filtering.

Legal and ethical considerations: In many jurisdictions, participating in DDoS attacks is illegal and can lead to criminal penalties. HOIC is widely categorized as a harmful tool and is commonly blocked by network providers and security products.