- DDoS mitigation refers to the process of successfully protecting a targeted server or network from a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.
- By utilising specially designed network equipment or a cloud-based protection service, a targeted victim is able to mitigate the incoming threat.
- DDoS attacks can disrupt online services and cause significant financial and reputational damage. To mitigate the risk of DDoS attacks, organisations employ Anti-DDoS Protection solutions.
A DDoS attack occurs when a malicious actor floods a server with internet traffic to disrupt legitimate users’ access to applications, services, and networks. Protecting against DDoS attacks is crucial as they can severely damage a company’s reputation and finances. Attacks can be motivated by various reasons, such as ideological disagreements or to harm a business’s image and sales. Detecting DDoS attacks is challenging, as slow upload and download speeds can often be attributed to other factors. However, proactive detection and robust protection measures can effectively thwart DDoS attacks before they cause significant harm.
Also read: 4 key things to know about DDoS attacks
What is Anti-DDoS protection?
Anti-DDoS Protection is a set of security measures designed to defend against DDoS attacks, which aim to overwhelm a targeted system, network, or service with a flood of malicious traffic. These attacks can render websites and online services inaccessible to legitimate users, resulting in downtime, loss of revenue, and damage to brand reputation.
Also read: ChatGPT went down due to DDoS attack, not its popularity
4 stages of DDoS protection
1. Detection
In order to stop a distributed attack, a website needs to be able to distinguish an attack from a high volume of normal traffic. If a product release or other announcement has a website swamped with legitimate new visitors, the last thing the site wants to do is throttle them or otherwise stop them from viewing the content of the website. IP reputation, common attack patterns, and previous data assist in proper detection.
2. Response
In this step, the DDoS protection network responds to an incoming identified threat by intelligently dropping malicious bot traffic, and absorbing the rest of the traffic. Using WAF page rules for application layer (L7) attacks, or another filtration process to handle lower level (L3/L4) attacks such as memcached or NTP amplification, a network is able to mitigate the attempt at disruption.
3. Routing
By intelligently routing traffic, an effective DDoS mitigation solution will break the remaining traffic into manageable chunks preventing denial-of-service.
4. Adaptation
A good network analyses traffic for patterns such as repeating offending IP blocks, particular attacks coming from certain countries, or particular protocols being used improperly. By adapting to attack patterns, a protection service can harden itself against future attacks.
Choosing a DDoS protection service
Historically, DDoS mitigation solutions required acquiring on-site equipment to filter incoming traffic. This method entailed investing in costly equipment and maintaining it, relying on a network capable of withstanding attacks. However, if the DDoS attack surpasses the network’s capacity, it can render on-site solutions ineffective. When considering a cloud-based DDoS mitigation service, specific attributes need evaluation including scalability, flexibility, reliability and network size.
