Do you want to secure your website from cyber threats? Then you must first learn what does a DDoS attack do?
What Does a DDoS Attack Do?
DDoS Attack is a type of hacking attack that aims to overload a server with too much traffic, making it unable to respond to legitimate requests. This may result in the denial of service for legitimate users. A Distributed Denial-of-Service attack is an attack that doesn’t exploit one single vulnerability in a system.
But instead relies on the sheer volume of traffic generated from multiple sources to cripple a targeted resource. A DDoS attack is a brute force attempt to overwhelm a system by flooding it with requests. Also, the traffic floods the intended target, preventing legitimate users from gaining access.
Hackers may launch these attacks against any online service that is accessible from the Internet. These are government or corporate websites, or even news media websites.
Advanced Persistent Threats
Each of these botnets is capable of sending several hundred HTTP requests per second. It means that if an attacker has even just 100 bots at his command he can send over 700 HTTP requests per second. This could potentially cause hundreds of thousands of simultaneous connections with one victim site.
It would significantly slow down or freeze the affected site and make it inaccessible for everyone else. This is who isn’t actively participating in a denial-of-service attack. In recent years, cyber-attacks have taken on more sophisticated forms and methods.
Advanced Persistent Threats are an example of such attacks. They are orchestrated by highly-skilled hackers who use very sophisticated techniques and tools to penetrate network security. This is while remaining undetected for long periods.
DDoS Attack Security Mitigation
Network security solutions such as firewalls, secure web gateways, and intrusion prevention systems. It can help organizations protect themselves against DDoS attacks. These solutions can also detect and block other types of threats that target a network or its endpoints, such as malware infections and malicious code.
DDoS attacks are typically orchestrated by groups of hackers who use bots to target a website or online service. One way to mitigate the effects of DDoS attacks is to filter out the requests from bots using technologies. This is such as Web Application Firewalls (WAF) and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS).
The WAF and IPS will block requests from bots and identify them as malformed traffic. An enterprise solution that can also help mitigate DDoS attacks is a security intelligence platform. Since, it can detect, analyze, and mitigate cyber threats in real-time.
Such platforms enable enterprises to detect anomalies in network traffic and analyze the traffic. Also, it determines if it is malicious or not, and makes decisions on what action to take in an automated manner. Another way to harden network security against DDoS attacks is by segmenting your network with firewalls or demilitarized zones (DMZs).
A DMZ is a dedicated network that is isolated from both external networks and internal networks. Thus, it is very vital to host web servers or other Internet-facing applications.