How to Stop a DDOS Attack

Introduction:

It can be difficult to prevent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, especially across distributed network architectures and during periods of high traffic. The solution is to implement DDoS protection services. 

When an attack is detected, mitigation begins instantly. Legitimate traffic is allowed through intelligent filtering, while malicious traffic is blocked at the source. With an always-on security layer in front of your infrastructure, you can stop bots and continue serving customers uninterrupted.

Read on to learn how DDoS protection works and discover the proactive steps you can take to stay safe.

Common Types of DDoS Traffic

DDoS attacks come in various forms, each designed to exploit different vulnerabilities in network infrastructure and services. Understanding these attack types is crucial for developing effective defense strategies. Let’s take a look at the most common examples. 

1. Volumetric Attacks

This method aims to consume a network's bandwidth resources to cause disruption. Attackers generate high volumes of junk traffic to flood links and exhaust bandwidth capacity. Common examples of this approach include UDP floods, which bombard targeted systems with UDP packets, and ICMP floods, which do the same using ICMP ping requests. 

2. Protocol Attacks

Protocol attacks attempt to exploit weaknesses in specific network protocols rather than relying on sheer traffic amounts. An example is a SYN flood, where attackers send multiple SYN requests to open connections but never finalize the handshake process. This causes half-open connections to pile up, eating away at available resources. Another example is the Ping of Death attack, which sends fragmented or oversized ICMP packets to crash systems.

3. Application Layer Attacks

At the application layer, attacks target particular services and software vulnerabilities. Examples include HTTP floods and Slowloris attacks. HTTP flood attacks bombard specific ports or URLs with overwhelming requests. Slowloris attacks tie up resources by opening many connections and keeping them open as long as possible but sending minimal data.

Why DDoS Attacks Pose a Threat to Businesses

The consequences of DDoS go far beyond just a temporary outage. Here is how these attacks can affect your business. They can:

• Lead to Financial Losses: Every minute of downtime means lost earnings from customers who cannot purchase products or access services on your site. Prolonged or repeated attacks add to massive costs that damage your bottom line.

• Hinder Normal Business Operations: Operational delays, canceled orders, and stalled projects harm productivity and satisfaction. When certain services are unavailable during an attack, it becomes challenging to run your business.

• Cause Reputational Damage: Customers today expect consistent and reliable digital experiences from companies. A DDoS attack drawing out website downtime reflects poorly on your brand in the eyes of these clients. It may cause them to lose trust in your business and switch to competitors. 

• Increase Security Risks: When attacks overwhelm your existing security, it exposes vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit further. This elevates risks of data theft or network infiltration even after the DDoS ends. Sensitive customer data may get stolen due to security gaps attacks help uncover, deepening the damage.

What Are the Top 4 Signs of a DDoS Attack?

The top 4 signs of a DDoS attack typically include unusually slow network performance, unavailability of specific websites or services, a surge in random traffic from a single IP or geographic region, and server crashes or system shutdowns. Let’s take a look at how you can easily recognize a DDoS attack in more detail. 

1. Slow Network Performance

If you suddenly experience unusually slow network speeds both on internal systems and when accessing external websites and services, this could mean a DDoS attack is saturating your bandwidth. Attacks aim to overwhelm available internet pipes, so performance will lag across your entire network footprint.

2. Website Unavailability

One of the common goals of a DDoS attack is to force websites offline. If your business's main site or internal tools become inaccessible or respond very slowly, it's a clear sign you may be under assault. Having customers or your workforce unable to load pages is a telltale indicator.

3. Increased Traffic from Specific IPs

Your network monitoring should be configured to track traffic patterns and volumes. A rise in traffic originating from specific IP addresses, especially short bursts that don't align with normal usage, could indicate an attack in progress. 

4. Inexplicable Outages

Unexplained frequent or prolonged periods of downtime related to your online presence or internal systems may also suggest that an advanced attacker is overrunning your defenses.

How Do You Stop a DDoS Attack?

Defending against DDoSattacks requires a multi-pronged approach combining proactive measures and reactive strategies. While completely preventing DDoS attacks may be challenging, organizations can significantly mitigate their impact by implementing a solid defense plan. Let’s look at the key steps and best practices to help protect your digital assets and maintain business continuity in the face of potential DDoS threats.

• Monitor Traffic Patterns

Your first line of defense is constant monitoring. Install tools to analyze website traffic 24/7 and alert you to unusual spikes or changes. By spotting anomalies early, your team can investigate and stop bots or potential attacks before serious overload occurs.

• Use a Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Fastly’s Next-Gen WAF sits in front of your web servers, filtering requests for signs of malicious activity. It can stop bots and detect and block common exploits like SQL injection or cross-site scripting before they reach your applications. By preventing harmful traffic, Fastly’s WAF protects you from dealing with disruptions after the fact.

• Implement Rate Limiting

No system can handle unlimited traffic indefinitely. Set access thresholds using edge rate limiting, so abnormal volumes are automatically managed without impacting normal users. This ensures your digital presence remains responsive for genuine customers during episodes of elevated traffic loads.

• Use Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)

CDNs make your website’s digital assets available from multiple server locations worldwide. This distributed architecture means that if one region faces elevated traffic, others nearby can handle the extra load to ensure you can continue serving customers.

• Employ IP Blacklisting

You also have the option of banning specific IP addresses known to cause problems in the past. Keep records of addresses engaged in questionable traffic patterns and automatically reject their future requests. This denies bad actors the ability to disrupt your business's operations.

• Conduct Regular Security Audits

Review your defenses periodically. As threats evolve, so too must protections. By scheduling security audits, your business can ensure tools remain up-to-date and appropriately configured to safeguard operations.

• Establish an Incident Response Plan

Even the most robust measures may not prevent every attack. Have a detailed plan prepared if issues arise, so your team can respond rapidly and minimize any impact. With a process ready to execute, you can address disruptions efficiently and continue serving customers.

To learn more about integrated DDoS protections, check out this resource on why security teams are switching to Fastly's next-gen WAF.

What Are the Challenges of Countering a DDoS Attack?

DDoS attacks pose a significant threat to online businesses and organizations, potentially causing service disruptions, financial losses, and reputational damage. While various DDoS protection services are available to counter these attacks, implementing and maintaining effective protection comes with its own set of challenges. Let’s explores the key obstacles that businesses face when defending against DDoS attacks.

• Cost Implications

The volume of DDoS attacks continues to grow year by year. Effective solutions need the capacity to filter massive amounts of junk traffic while allowing legitimate users through without delays. This level of performance and scalability does not come without extra cost. You must budget appropriately to obtain a service that can scale alongside evolving threats.

• Complexity of Implementation

Another challenge is the technical difficulties of deploying and managing mitigation solutions. Proper configuration is needed to detect attacks and divert traffic to filters without disrupting regular website functions. Ongoing maintenance is also important to ensure reliable protection. This level of integration often requires dedicating substantial time and resources. For some businesses, the steep learning curve may present difficulties.

• False Positives

Not every filtering algorithm is perfect, so some customers may still encounter delays or errors. Your provider must provide careful tuning to minimize such false positives, preserving user experience while detering attacks.

• Evolving Threats

For every attack strategy that’s defeated, another springs up. DDoS defense solutions need to adapt to new tactics or risk becoming outdated. Your provider needs to maintain a dedicated research team focused on staying ahead of evolving risks. Without such agile security, even today’s best protection becomes vulnerable tomorrow.

• Resource Intensity

DDoS attacks come in all sizes, but defending against large assaults requires extensive infrastructure that can absorb massive volumes of junk traffic. The resources and network capacity needed can be immense. As an individual business, maintaining such capabilities on standby yourself would be infeasible. Outsourcing to experienced mitigation providers is critical as they can scale resources when needed for particular customers. 

Why Fastly Is Your Best Solution to Preventing DDoS Attacks

Maintaining comprehensive security against DDoS attacks presents major challenges in terms of cost, complexity, false positives, evolving threats, and resource intensity. However, Fastly's cloud-based DDoS protection solution directly resolves each of these concerns.

The key benefits of Fastly’s DDoS Protection include the following:

• Lowers Costs: Fastly offers cost-effective DDoS protection, which is included with its CDN services. Flexible payment options let you choose the package suited to your needs, with unlimited overage protection. Consolidating with a single vendor for security, CDN, and edge cloud services is the more affordable choice.

• Simplifies Complexity: Fastly's solution requires no complex setup or manual tuning on your side. The network automatically absorbs layer 3/4 attacks, while the next-gen WAF seamlessly handles Layer 7 threats.

• Reduces False Positives: Fastly's advanced SmartParse detection engine accurately classifies requests while minimizing the false positives that could block real users.

• Continuously Evolves: Fastly enhances detection and mitigation based on solid intelligence, letting you stay ahead of evolving global attack trends, such as the recent Reset attacks.

• Resource Efficient: Fastly's massive 336 Tbsp network has a built-in capacity to absorb even extraordinary attacks without performance impacts. Automated edge mitigation also reduces the origin load.

Sign up for a free trial to learn more about how Fastly can bring you peace of mind and stop bad actors from interfering with your digital presence