DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) is a type of cyberattack that aims to make a website, server, or network temporarily or permanently inaccessible. These attacks overwhelm the target system’s capacity by sending a flood of traffic from multiple sources at the same time.
How Does a DDoS Attack Work?
DDoS attacks are typically carried out using a botnet, a network of thousands of devices (computers, servers, IoT devices, etc.) that have been compromised via malware. These devices, under the attacker’s control, continuously send requests to the target system. As a result of this high traffic:
- Websites slow down or go offline entirely.
- Online services experience outages.
- Businesses suffer both financial losses and reputational damage.
Common Types of DDoS Attacks
- Volumetric Attacks: Aim to consume all available network bandwidth.
- Protocol Attacks: Target server resources to make them unable to respond to legitimate requests.
- Application Layer Attacks: These are complex attacks targeting web applications and are harder to detect.
How to Protect Against DDoS Attacks
- Using Firewalls and WAFs (Web Application Firewalls): These systems inspect incoming and outgoing traffic to block malicious requests, forming the first line of defense against DDoS attacks.
- Detecting Anomalies with Traffic Analysis Tools: These tools help identify unusual patterns in traffic volume, connection counts, or access behavior to detect potential attacks early.
- DDoS Protection Services (such as Cloudflare, Akamai, AWS Shield): These services filter traffic, allowing only legitimate user requests to reach the target, while automatically mitigating attack traffic.
- Load Balancing Solutions: By distributing traffic across multiple servers, load balancers prevent any single system from becoming overwhelmed.