The DDoS attack is one of the most dangerous cyber threats. In today’s article, we will dive deep into its primary purpose, how it functions and how you could protect yourself.
What is the purpose of a DDoS attack?
DDoS or Distributed Denial of Service is a cyber-attack type that takes advantage of network resources’ specific capacity restrictions. As a result, it disrupts critical objectives like a network, system, or server. The DDoS attack floods the targeted online site with requests. The goal is to overload the website’s capacity in order to handle more inquiries. As a result, the website will no longer function properly.
How does a DDoS attack work?
Devices connected to the Internet are the most common source of DDoS attacks. Malware infects a large number of devices, computers, and IoT devices, allowing the attacker to take control of them. Bots or zombies are phrases that are often used to describe such devices, and a botnet is a group of them.
After constructing the botnet, the hacker is now ready to begin the attack. They’re all under remote control, and each one is given orders. All of the affected zombies or bots send requests to the victim’s IP address. The network or server will eventually become overburdened and incapable of handling the load. It’s tough to tell the difference between valid and malicious traffic because each bot seems to be a typical Internet device.
Can you protect against DDoS attacks?
Yes, you could protect yourself or your business from DDoS attacks. There are different methods. Here are some of them:
- Use a load balancing solution. When dealing with large amounts of traffic, load balancing is the most efficient option. It refers to the process of distributing traffic and routing it to other servers.
- Invest in DDoS protected DNS service. Modern technology is required to increase your defense against DDoS attacks. Why? Because if your Domain Name System is down (DNS Outage) and your customers can’t access your site, you’re going to lose a lot of money. And nobody wants that.
- Monitor your traffic. You should know your traffic. This is the only method to make a distinction between typical activity and suspicious activity that could lead to a DDoS attack.
Different attack types
We can divide DDoS attacks into three types. They are as follows:
- Volume-based attacks. To overwhelm a device, website, or server, they employ massive amounts of false traffic.
- ICMP Flood, a.k.a Ping Flood – they are protocol-based attacks. They send a high number of packets to their victim network infrastructures as well as infrastructure management tools.
- Slowloris – they are application-layer attacks. Its goal is to flood applications with malicious queries in order to overload them.
Conclusion
Let’s review. The purpose of DDoS attack is to overload the victim’s server, system, or network. But you could defend against this. How? By implementing load balancing solutions, DDoS protection and to monitor your traffic. This will help and prevent you from losing a lot of customers and money.