What are DDoS Attacks?

When DDoS attacks take place, a large volume of counterfeit traffic is sent to a website in an effort to enfeeble its host servers until it crashes. The site under attack usually crashes because the increased traffic uses up completely the bandwidth limit or overloads the servers that the website depends on.

There are a couple of types of DDoS attacks you should know:

1. The first type happens when traffic is directed at the whole website. This is meant to shut down the website as a whole and stop it from performing normally.
2. The second type involves the attacker sending the traffic to particular parts of the website or aiming at a hosted application.

The significant thing to consider is that both kinds of attacks are employing a large, unpredictable increase in traffic to overwhelm the website’s bandwidth and server capacity, with the aim of either total website shut-down or deactivating specific functionality.

How do DDoS attacks happen?

There are a lot of hackers with a malevolent purpose that want to break your website through DDoS or even backdoor attacks. They use a variety of methods to start attacks, including the following:

• Asymmetric traffic attacks, where a website gets a high volume of counterfeit user requests that are designed to exhaust server resources.
• Targeted traffic attacks that raise the load on a hosted application, causing it to crash
• Multi-layered attacks that target both the website and the hosted application concurrently until both crash.
• Hackers create illegal traffic from multiple IP addresses, so it’s very difficult for the victims of DDoS attacks to find the source.

But, why do DDoS attacks happen?

Hackers participate in DDoS attacks for a number of reasons. For instance, a competitor may want to attack your website to damage your business. A hacker may want to attack your site to elicit personal and business information.

If you sell products and services via your website, a DDoS attack can prevent you from serving clients or making sales. That can impose your business time and money, and even harm its reputation.

Stopping a DDoS attack is far better than dealing with the consequences of one.

How can you prevent DDoS attacks?

As horrifying as DDoS attacks can be, the good news is they’re relatively easy to stop. This section will cover the five ways you can keep your site safe from DDoS attacks.

1. Invest in good network hardware

Investing in high-quality network hardware can assist you to find unpredictable spikes in website traffic and even prevent them entirely. Your network hardware contains all the constituent parts that help transfer data across a network, including your router, the cables you employ to connect your systems, network switches, and interface cards.

If you invest in great equipment, you can arrange your network hardware to prevent DDoS attacks. One way to do this is to change your network firewall settings so that requests from outside your network are overlooked.

This method can work well for enterprise applications that are utilized by internal staff members, protecting those applications from external users of any type.

For a small business owner or website administrator, it can be very difficult to invest in exorbitant network hardware. In addition, people won’t always have the resources and skills to handle a private network hardware system.

Select one that invests in great network hardware so your website is protected. That way, you won’t have to tolerate the expenses related to buying and retaining the costly network infrastructure required to support your website.

2. Hire a DDoS mitigation service

Another method to stop attacks is to hire a DDoS mitigation service. Their way of stopping attacks is to navigate all incoming traffic through a filter so that only real traffic hits your website or application.

It is rational to hire a DDoS mitigation service if you’re vulnerable to a large, complicated DDoS attack. If you’re adopting a managed hosting service for your website, then hiring a separate DDoS mitigation service may not be required as your provider should provide their own service.

3. Delete website vulnerabilities

The best way to stop a DDoS attack is to delete all vulnerabilities on your website. A site that’s backed by a strong network and hosting service is far less likely to be the target of a successful attack.

If you utilize a WordPress website, ensure to frequently update the version you’re using, so the software includes the latest protective measures against DDoS attacks.

Talk to your hosting provider about whether they frequently update their systems, software, and firewalls. You and your hosting provider have a common responsibility for defending your site against DDoS attacks.

You can install plugins that maintain and reinforce your website by intelligently handling all incoming traffic. Don’t install too many security plugins and select them very cautiously.

Many plugins, while designed to defend your website, are completely susceptible to an attack themselves. Employing high-quality prevention tools is essential.

4. Use web application firewalls and CDNs

Using web application firewalls is a wonderful method to defend larger enterprise-level applications. A firewall can find and stop DDoS attacks by supervising unconventional spikes in traffic and obstructing them.

A content distribution network, or CDN, can stabilize website traffic by distributing it across various servers situated around the globe. If your website is hosted on a server in London and on another server in Seoul, for example, you’ve broadened your website’s presence on the internet, making it more difficult for attackers to initiate a DDoS attack against you.

If the task of an attacker is to direct a lot of fake traffic your way, then, as a site owner, your job is to discover and prevent that unconventional activity so you can decrease its effect. Using a CDN is an amazing way to do that.

5. Raise internet bandwidth and server capacity

The leading reason your website can crash or go offline after DDoS attacks is if it doesn’t have the capacity to manage the volume of traffic sent by the attacker.

Purchasing extra bandwidth and increasing your website’s server capacity are great ways to decrease the effect of a DDoS attack. If your website can manage one million users at once, and a DDoS attack only sends 500,000 fake visitors, your site will keep up operating normally.

Purchasing more bandwidth and enlarging your server capacity can also assist you to scale your business, as your website will be able to serve more clients and users. Talk to your hosting service provider about enhancing your plan to one that provides you with a larger server capacity. Along with the advantages of upgraded protection against DDoS attacks, the raised website capacity might help you expand your business.