As more and more of our lives, work, and business are conducted online, security is more critical than ever. From personal information to trade secrets and business data, protecting systems from hacking, phishing, DDoS attacks, and other cyberattacks is key to keeping information, systems, and customers safe.
DDoS attacks, or distributed denial of service attacks, target websites and servers of businesses with the goal of disrupting or compromising businesses and companies of every size. These types of attacks are one of the key topics in cybersecurity, and are something that every organization needs to stay vigilant against.
Here we’ll take a look at what a DDoS attack is, the various types of attacks, DDoS protection and how to prevent attacks, and what to do if your business or organization is the victim of a DDoS attack.
What is a DDOS attack?
Simply put, a DDoS attack[1] is a cyberattack designed to overwhelm an organization’s technology, system, and digital resources with traffic. By doing so, hackers use the DDoS attack to force a site or resource offline, preventing regular customers or users from being able to access it and harming a business’ reputation and systems. Some can even extend to extortion, with ransomware or other cyberthreat methods used.
A distributed denial of service attack is usually carried out by multiple pieces of hardware, often referred to as a botnet. This networked facet differentiates a DDoS attack from a DoS attack (which we’ll look at in just a moment). Points of attack can range from your website or web servers to any IoT devices that may be connected to the network.
DDoS attacks are typically aimed at disrupting businesses or organizations by rendering their technology and connected devices unavailable. Customers can’t get to a site, bankers may not be able to log in to their accounts, apps may stop functioning, and so on. Additionally, a DDoS attack may prevent employees of an organization from being able to access networked resources within the company.
Even internet service providers, online gaming sites, and other systems are not immune from attack. One example is the Dark Frost botnet[2], a piece of malware that compromised hundreds of gaming machines earlier in 2023.
Different Types of DDoS attacks
There are dozens of different attacks considered DDoS attacks, but they generally fall into three broad categories:
- Application layer attacks. These are cyberattacks that utilize weaknesses in the application layer to overburden limited network or computer resources such as available memory or disk space.
- Volumetric attacks. These types of attacks are designed to overwhelm networks or sites with so much traffic that bandwidth is completely used up, making it impossible for legitimate users to access the online resources or sites.
- Protocol attacks. These attacks overwhelm the processing power of network devices and infrastructure such as servers. They do so through malicious connection requests, overloading the targeted system.
As for more specific types of DDoS attacks, there are a few common examples that cybercriminals frequently choose to employ.
- SYN flood attacks. SYN flood attacks manipulate the three-way handshake process used by servers to establish a connection. By creating lots of half-opened connections and never finalizing any one of them, a SYN flood attack forces servers to be unresponsive to legitimate connection requests by completely overwhelming the available bandwidth.
- HTTP flood attacks. These attacks overwhelm a server with HTTP requests, rendering it unable to service legitimate traffic. HTTP flood attacks[3] may send multiple requests for files, images, etc., or they may be coordinated to submit form after form on the website, thus overwhelming the server resources.
- DNS amplification attacks. A DNS amplification attack[4], or domain name server amplification attack, uses publicly available and open DNS servers. Hackers send DNS name lookup requests to the victim server, routing those requests back to that same target server. Attempting to respond to all of these requests causes the system to be overwhelmed by the amount of data being sent out and back to the system.
What’s the difference between a DoS attack and a DDoS attack?
The difference between DoS and DDoS threats is mainly a simple one. A DoS (Denial of Service) attack is one that comes from a single location. Think of the old movie image of a single hacker working on a single computer, taking hours to “hack” into a system. A DoS attack is similar—one computer is being used to disrupt the traffic and functionality of a target system.
The distinction between the two lies in the addition of the word “distributed.” A distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) uses a network of connected devices all targeting a system or server together. This method gives a hacker much more bandwidth, and the network of infected computers or bots can initiate an attack and interrupt a system much more quickly.
One additional reason for the success of DDoS attacks is that each of the networked devices (bots) has a different IP address. This makes tracking down the source of the attack very difficult, and makes it impossible for companies to defend against since they cannot pinpoint and block a single IP address.
How can you prevent a DDoS attack?
In order to protect your business and your data from DDoS attacks, you need to think far beyond a basic firewall. In addition to being robust, your DDoS mitigation tactics need to be upgradable and responsive.
Prevention is the best bet, and ensuring that your network security, online services, and network connections have limited vulnerabilities is the best path to protection. Exploiting weaknesses in networks and systems is how DDoS attacks work, after all.
Some prevention methods are more involved than others. For example, locating your servers in different data centers, and ensuring that these data centers are on different networks. The geographical distribution of something like Amazon Web Services (AWS) is based in part on this type of defense and redundancy.
We joked about firewalls before, but ensuring that your hardware is up to date and robust is another great prevention method. Many network firewalls and load balancers are updated to prevent common DDoS attacks and are based on a large number of known threats so that they can protect against them. Additionally, there is modern hardware available that offers the option to close TCP connections at a certain point—should the need arise.
Outsourcing your infrastructure needs and utilizing cloud services are two additional defensive measures that can be taken. Again, the distribution of resources, additional bandwidth, and separate networks involved are solid defensive measures, as are the prevention measures offered by some cloud providers and ISPs.
What are the risks of falling victim to a DDoS attack?
There are several potential risks associated with DDoS attacks, and they range from functional to reputational.
- Slow load times. Even if your site or network is not disabled completely, slow load times and inability to load certain pages or resources can either send customers away or prevent your employees from conducting key business functions.
- Loss of data. From outright data theft to simply being unable to access it, data loss can have significant consequences for any business.
- Increased costs. A DDoS attack inundating your site with malicious traffic and an enormous number of requests can mean big charges from a web hosting company. There can also be costs associated with repairing or recovering network resources, content, and information.
- Damage to your brand. Reputation is key in almost every industry, and any damage to your company’s reputation means the potential for lost customers and lost revenue. Even minimal attacks can negatively impact users’ experiences and send them looking for a new company.
What should you do if you’re the victim of a DDoS attack?
Following a DDoS attack on your business and systems, there are a few steps you should immediately take.
First, identify the threat and how it was able to access your systems. Once you understand the what and the how, you can take measures to fix the problem(s) and implement protections that prevent future attacks. Whether this means upgrading software, diversifying your networks and server locations, patching network equipment, or other measures will depend on the type of attack and the vulnerability that it exploited.
Next, implementing new security protocols is a key step. There is always room for improvement when it comes to security measures, so consider this an opportunity to upgrade your protection and practices to prevent future attacks.
Recovering from an attack likely also means attempting to recover services, data, or devices. Whether you have an in-house IT department or are outsourcing your technology needs, they will have processes to wipe, restore, and repair as needed.
You will also want to clear any logs associated with the malicious requests to prevent other connected systems from being impacted and to close any loopholes or exploits that might remain.
Tools for preventing and protecting against a DDoS attack
There are several options for preventing and protecting against DDoS and DoS attacks. A few notable options include:
- Scripts that automatically spot and block suspicious IP addresses
- Log-parsing tools that identify DDoS attacks and update firewall rules automatically
- Intrusion-detection systems (IDS) that spot and block malicious traffic
- AI-based protection services
- Incoming traffic analysis that spots bad actors and prioritizes legitimate traffic
- Threat-specific blockers for UDP floods, POST floods, HTTP GET, and others
In addition to preventive tools and software, you may also consider cyber insurance for your small business, which offers coverage for damages to both companies and customers impacted by cybersecurity incidents.
DDoS prevention and protection checklist
To prevent against a cyberattack and to protect your business, data, and customers, be sure to engage in essential cybersecurity practices.
[themify_list icon=”ti-check-box” icon_color=”#D37728″]
- Know your resources. Be sure to identify critical resources that may be vulnerable to attack and which may have the largest impact if they are attacked.
- Find an upstream provider with strong defenses. There is only so much you can do at the local level, but cloud providers, ISPs, and others have strong defensive tools available.
- Review your traffic. Knowing what your baseline average for traffic is will help you identify changes that may signal an ongoing or impending attack.
- Bolster your infrastructure. Keep your technology up to date and protected against common and well-known threats before searching for more advanced protection.
- Diversify. As mentioned before, distributing your servers across multiple locations and networks helps to limit the risks of an attack.
- Make a plan. No protection is perfect, so ensure that you develop and put a plan in place in the event that a DDoS attack does occur.
[/themify_list]
Expert advice and managed IT services
No matter what size your business is or how large your online footprint, new cyberthreats that are being identified every day may find their way to your company. Fortunately, you do not have to weather this storm on your own.
Whether you are a startup or a well-established business that needs additional protection, consult with a highly-rated IT service provider or cybersecurity expert. With experience ranging across virtually every industry, there is certain to be a partner who can guide you through protecting your systems and preventing cyberattacks that could damage your business.
Sources
- What is a DDoS attack?, Microsoft
- Dark Frost Botnet Launches Devastating DDoS Attacks on Gaming Industry, The Hacker News
- HTTP flood attack, Cloudflare
- DNS Amplification Attacks, CISA