HOIC is an open-source network stress program for Windows developed by Anonymous, a well-known hacktivist collective. It is commonly used for denial of service and distributed denial of service attacks. The main goal of this piece of software is to flood target systems with junk HTTP GET and POST requests.

Detection and firepower

The application relies on booster scripts that help you scatter attack traffic and conceal your geolocation. It is possible to initiate a considerable amount of junk requests at a given time. This means that you only need about fifty users in order to execute a successful DDoS attack. This differs from LOIC, the project’s predecessor, which requires thousands of people to coordinate and launch such an operation.

Attack description

Due to widespread HOIC availability you can execute powerful DDoS attacks even if you have limited knowledge and experience of hacking techniques. The utility is capable of opening up to 256 simultaneous sessions at once, overwhelming a target system by sending an uninterrupted stream of junk traffic until legitimate requests are no longer able to be processed. Alternatively, you may try similar programs, namely Udp Flooder or DoSHTTP.

Features

free to download and use;
compatible with modern Windows versions;
allows you to carry out DoS and DDoS attacks;
you can specify the number of threads and targets;
it is possible to choose the attack power level.