What Is DDoS Attack & How To Prevent It?

Introduction:

A denial-of-service attack aims to slow or shut down machines or networks, rendering them inaccessible to those who require them. Information systems, devices, or other network or machine resources — email, online accounts, e-commerce sites, and other services — become unusable due to a DDoS attack. While a DDoS attack may not be intended to cause direct theft or data loss, the time and money spent to recover can have a significant financial impact on the targeted organization. Additional costs include lost business, dissatisfied customers, and reputational damage.

Learning about DDoS attacks and staying alert of all the threats out there has become very crucial now. IPSpecialist is the best place to learn everything about Cybersecurity.

There are three types of DDoS attacks:

• Volumetric

Volumetric attacks, the most common type of DDoS attack, flood a machine’s or a network’s bandwidth with false data requests on all available ports. This causes the network to become overburdened, rendering it unable to accept normal traffic. Volumetric attacks are divided into subcategories. A UDP (User Datagram Protocol) flood is the most common type of volumetric attack, in which forged UDP packets with false addresses — such as the victim’s IP address — are sent to servers for UDP-based applications in a flood of reply traffic.

• Protocol

Protocol attacks aim to crash a system by targeting the protocols used to transfer data. A SYN flood, for example, targets the process of establishing a TCP/IP connection by flooding the victim with SYN packets requesting synchronization.

• Application

Application attacks, like protocol attacks, aim to exploit a flaw in an application. These attacks primarily target direct web traffic and can be difficult to detect because a machine may believe it deals with nothing more than an unusually high volume of Internet traffic.

Ways To Avoid  DDoS Attack

1. Understand The Traffic On Your Network

Every company’s infrastructure has its own set of Internet traffic patterns; learn about yours. Once you understand your company’s normal traffic pattern, you will have a baseline.

2. Make A Plan For Dealing With A Denial Of Service Attack

Do you know what to expect if and when a DDoS attack occurs? What will your company’s response be? When your network is targeted, you will respond quickly and efficiently if you have a plan in place ahead of time.

This will require some preparation; the more complex your infrastructure is, the more detailed your DDoS response plans are. Your strategy should include the following elements:

• A systems checklist
• A trained response team
• Well-defined notification and escalation procedures
• A list of internal and external contacts should be made aware of the attack.
• A communication strategy for all stakeholders, such as customers or vendors

3. Make Your Network More Durable

Your infrastructure should be as resistant to DDoS attacks as possible because some DDoS attacks target firewalls; this means more than just firewalls. Ensure that your data centres are connected to different networks and are not all in the same physical location, that your servers are located in different data centers, and that your network is free of traffic bottlenecks.

4. Maintain Good Online Hygiene

Your users should follow best security practices such as changing passwords and using secure authentication methods.

5. Increase Your Bandwidth

If DDoS is causing a traffic jam in your network, widening the highway is one way to alleviate the situation. Your organization will absorb a larger volume of traffic by adding more bandwidth.

6. Use Anti-DDos Hardware And Software To Your Advantage

DDoS attacks have existed for some time, and some are quite common. Many products, for example, are prepared to defend against or mitigate specific protocol and application attacks.

7. Move To The Cloud

The cloud, for example, has more bandwidth than on-premise resources, and the cloud’s nature means that many servers are not in the same location.

8. Recognize The Signs And Symptoms Of A Heart Attack

Inexplicably, your network slows down. The website goes offline. You are getting a lot of spam all of a sudden. All of these things could indicate a DDoS attack.

9. Hire A DDos Protection Firm

DDoS-as-a-Service is a service provided by some companies. Some of these firms specialize in rapidly scaling resources in response to an attack, while others bolster defences and still mitigate the damage caused by an ongoing attack.

10. Keep An Eye Out For Unusual Activities

Monitor your network for unusual traffic once you have figured out your typical activity and the signs of an attack. Your company will be able to detect and mitigate a DDoS attack by monitoring traffic in real-time.

Conclusion

As response times have decreased from days to minutes, automated DDoS monitoring and reporting will become the norm for service providers. Distributed DoS attacks, as we have seen, are a real threat that can cause significant harm to many Internet users. For some, the losses have progressed from being merely inconvenient to debilitating and disastrous for some users is reason to believe that the frequency and severity of DDoS attacks will rise. The current low level of DDoS-related losses is unlikely due to successes in defending against them, difficulties in carrying out the attacks, or a lack of appealing targets to attack. Rather, the magnitude of loss is more closely linked to the motivations and desires of those who carry out the attacks.