5 Defenses Against DDoS Attacks

The internet plays a big role in our lives now more than ever, and with that comes the need for dependable internet security.

Too many businesses have fallen behind the curve when it comes to defending against online attacks. Any informed observer can point to news stories recounting the latest firm to be victimized, and embarrassingly enough, they are frequently large corporations possessing volumes of sensitive customer data.

One of the most common methods is known as a DDoS attack, or a distributed denial of service attack. It usually consists of hackers launching an orchestrated effort across countless computer devices, often spanning multiple countries, to overwhelm a website’s capabilities and force them to go offline.

Fortunately enough, even the smallest of businesses can take preventive measures against DDoS attacks.

Oversubscribe Bandwidth

The entire strategy behind a DDoS attack is to exhaust all of a server’s allocated bandwidth. Therefore, it is an obvious choice for a website owner to oversubscribe and rent ample resources.

A manager may be confident that they have a steady inflow of online users and that it is logical to save money by matching bandwidth subscription to these predictable patterns. The reality is that their website is left alarmingly vulnerable to attacks that could cause more monetary damage than originally saved through cut costs.

The price of bandwidth has been perpetually decreasing, so the ideal amount today may be significantly cheaper than when the website was initially founded.

Automated Mitigation

At the time a DDoS attack is occurring, your servers will be receiving requests from all sorts of addresses. An unprepared system may fail to make any sense of this mess.

Computing tools can now be installed to take advantage of automated mitigation. Over an extended time frame, these tools can monitor sources of traffic coming to the website. As this data accumulates, it is possible to establish a sense of traditional traffic patterns.

As soon as traffic travels outside of these predetermined bounds, it will draw attention from the program. While typical traffic will be allowed to function as usual, sudden increases from suspected sources will be kept at bay, preventing the server from failing.

Outsourcing to Expert Security Firms

Instead of creating their own sort of gatekeeper, many organizations have found it more beneficial to outsource the dirty work. Often because their structure is too large, complex or risky to manage on their own. Plenty of firms have responded to this need by offering their own protective services.

Third party contractors can be tapped to dynamically monitor your network. Similar to what was previously described, they can observe traffic to build a model of standard activity and proceed to filter any visitors originating from potentially hazardous sources.

It is worth noting that internet service providers are sometimes willing to offer these services, and that both ISPs and other third party contractors may offer additional forms of protection unlisted here.

Restricting Access of UDP or TCP Sources

There are several different formats used for common internet traffic. The visitors of websites will be made up of different combinations of these various formats. By rule of thumb, TCP connections require confirmation that the signal has reached the receiver, while UDP connections do not.

Large-scale DDoS attacks have been reported to arrive in either of these formats. However, it is important to know which kind of traffic arrives to your own website. If your visitors solely use one particular source, then a sudden increase in the other type may be an early sign of a DDoS attack in progress. If this applies to your website, either kind may be completely blocked in order to preserve security.

System Strengthening

Network connections can be secured all you want, but it is impractical to ignore the root of the system. When using a computer to host a well-functioning website, it may not be the best choice to use the default options right out of the box.

More likely than not, your unit can be better customized to handle the work it is designated. The easiest starting point is to cover basic virus protection and firewalls to make sure they are functioning properly. From there, you can alter the configurations of the operating system, server and any other programs utilized to keep the website online.

There is no such thing as a perfect defense against DDoS attacks. As means of defending against them continue to improve, so do the attacks themselves. But it is far from the truth to suggest that you are incapable of taking viable steps of providing exceptional protection for your network. Regardless of the notable targets that DDoS attacks have claimed, small businesses can go a long way in defending themselves.