DDoS attacks are volume-based attacks designed to overwhelm the target’s network bandwidth and flood it. They exploit network protocol weaknesses and disrupt business services. They use TCP and UDP protocols and can also launch application-layered attacks, such as ones on web servers. A DDoS attack can send many requests and overwhelm resources to exhaustion.
This guide will show you how to prevent DDoS attacks and what steps you can take to protect your organization.
What are DDoS Attacks?
A DDoS attack is a Distributed Denial of Service Attack that targets your entire infrastructure. DDoS threats target computer systems and can exploit machines and other networked assets like IoT devices. A DDoS attack can unexpectedly jam your traffic, clog up data highways, and prevent your regular data packets from reaching their destination on time.
How Do DDoS Attacks Work?
DDoS attacks are launched on networks connected to IoT machines. These networks can also have other devices that may be infected by malware. DDoS attackers can connect to these machines remotely, and some of these individual devices may be called bots or zombies. A botnet refers to a collection of bots, and once a botnet is created, the attacker can direct and scale the DDoS attack by sending remote instructions for every bot.
When a botnet targets the victim’s network or server, it sends requests to the host’s IP address. These requests can potentially overwhelm the network server, leading to a denial of service to its normal traffic.
Each bot can appear to come from a legitimate internet device, which makes it hard to distinguish it from other bots.
How to Detect an Incoming DDoS Attack?
One of the best ways to prevent a DDoS attack is knowing that the attack is taking place somewhere. To detect a DDoS attack, you must collect enough information about your network traffic and perform a thorough analysis. You can do this manually or by using automated security tools. Your detection methods will be the key to creating a strong DDoS defense strategy.
You can perform an inline examination of all packets and out-of-band detection through traffic flow record analysis. Both approaches can be used on cloud services or on-premises networks. Essential inline DDoS detection will feature capabilities like intrusion prevention systems, firewalls, and load balancers. Out-of-band DDoS detection can receive data flows from sFlow, jFlow, NetFlow, and other IPFIX-enabling networks, enabled routers, and switches. It involves analyzing flow data to detect attacks and mitigate threats automatically.
You can improve the accuracy of your DDoS detection by using big data technologies. Single servers lack enough computing power, memory, or storage resources to track high-traffic volumes globally. You can use big data technologies to store network events in real time and access data repositories on the cloud. This way, you can scale up your DDoS detection and avoid building expensive in-house projects that require ongoing investments.
Best Practices to Prevent DDoS Attacks
Unplug your modem and wait for some time. Your ISP will reassign the IP address that someone is mimicking to someone else. Let it be picked up by a new IP that the attackers will not know. Update your DNS with a new dynamic IP address.
Your attackers will keep sending data packets against an IP not associated with you.
It can be much more challenging if you are a well-established business that owns a static IP address.
You can use protection provided by services like SentinelOne to fight against DDoS attacks.
Don’t oversubscribe on network bandwidth just because it’s cheap; it opens up more room for DDoS attacks. Employ automated DDoS mitigation technologies and web traffic monitoring tools to detect and nip threats immediately. Also, hire a third-party service provider to protect web apps and do cloud audits. Installing web application firewalls can also help filter out questionable web traffic. They will provide basic protection for small to medium businesses.
Here are some best practices you can implement to learn how to prevent DDoS attacks.
1. Learn About Your Network Traffic
You need to understand normal and abnormal traffic patterns, identify anomalies that could indicate potential signs of an incoming DDoS attack, assess your networks, examine your network’s attack surface, including software, hardware, and overall topology, get an idea of the risk level, and prioritize risk remediation. You will have to be able to identify the likelihood of an attack, assess its potential impact, and neutralize it.
2. Work on DDoS Resiliency Planning
Inventory all your web and cloud assets that need protection against DDoS attacks.
This will include network configurations, and you must create a DDoS response plan.
Design a plan to mitigate attacks, including communication protocols and escalation procedures. Plan out your recovery steps to ensure business continuity.
Develop governance and control over DDoS actions and implementation to ensure that your network is compliant. You can also control the operation daily and prevent failures during significant incidents.
3. Apply the Best Network and Infrastructure Security Measures.
You can also take measures such as implementing multi-layered protection against the threat and applying rate limiting, adding rate limits for API endpoints, preventing API abuse, and mitigating the risk of DDoS attacks. After you identify the attack type for DDoS threats, filter specific traffic or block malicious IP addresses. This will help you improve your security posture and prevent further attacks.
4. Assign DDoS Priority Buckets
It’s because not all web resources are equal. Some assets need to be protected first before others. And when you understand the criticality of your resources, you can enhance DDoS security. You will need 24×7 DDoS protection for some resources, and you cannot afford a compromise on business transactions or communications to protect your reputation.
5. Try Network Segmentation
Use network segmentation to separate and distribute your assets, making them harder to target. You can place your web servers on public subnets and keep database servers in private ones. Restrict unauthorized access to database servers from web browsers, from web servers, and exclude other hosts. You can limit traffic from other destinations and countries where your users aren’t located. This reduces exposure to potential attackers from regions you don’t expect your users to come from. You can use load balancer protection technologies to secure web servers and computational resources.
How to Mitigate a DDoS Attack in Progress?
Understand the warning signs of DDoS attacks and look for symptoms of spotty network connectivity, such as intranets, intermittent website shutdowns, and sudden internet disconnections.
Unusual spikes in resource usage, high volumes of email spam, irregular log entries, unforeseen system crashes or freezes, and network connectivity issues are signs of DDoS threats.
Conduct traffic analysis specifically for DDoS attacks and determine how suddenly your website traffic spikes or decreases. You can also implement black hole routing, a technique that drops malicious traffic right before it reaches target servers. It can block traffic from specific IP addresses and subnets identifiable as the attacker’s source.
You can block traffic tied to unknown IP addresses, monitor internal resources or devices, and try to prevent them from being controlled remotely or turning into botnets.
You can do this by keeping your devices and software up to date, using a good VPN connection, reputable anti-malware solutions, and strong and unique passwords for logging in.
Use botnet detection and removal services to reduce the risk of hijacking your devices. Start implementing continuous monitoring and log data analysis technologies. They can enable a proactive approach to respond quickly to DDoS attacks.
You can build resilience against DDoS threats by regularly reviewing logs and maintaining a robust logging infrastructure. As part of your DDoS defense strategy, implement CAPTCHA challenges.
It can verify human interactions, control resource usage, and improve holistic application security. Bots cannot complete CAPTCHA requests and flood websites with unauthorized access attempts. Although it will be an extra hurdle for your users, modern CAPTCHA solutions can do wonders to balance security with user experience. You can also add cryptographic puzzle challenges during the request process to vet users and verify them. These puzzles can involve problems like solving math, hashing, or asking questions that botnets cannot answer suddenly.
This method can filter out malicious automated requests and ensure that your server resources are assigned to the right users and not overwhelmed by bot-generated traffic. Assign security professionals who can be kept accountable for handling DDoS recovery processes. You should also specify the location of your data backups and ensure that they are stored and reviewed regularly. Good DDoS recovery planning will also outline specific steps to restore normal security operations during DDoS attacks.
Real-World Examples of DDoS Attacks
Blizzard has recently been affected by a DDoS attack. Its players won’t be able to connect to Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and several other games. The attack will affect logins and latency, and Blizzard’s customer service team has acknowledged it and is currently working on it.
Blizzard said the attack will result in high latency and disconnections for some players.
They are actively working towards mitigating the issue. Elon Musk also said that massive cyber attacks had disrupted X and pointed to IP addresses that seemed to originate from the Ukraine area. DDoS attacks have been launched against X’s infrastructure multiple times, causing disruptions. The new Eleven11bot has infected 86,000 devices with DDoS attacks.
It targeted security cameras network video recorders, and the attacks were loosely connected to Iran. The Eleven11bot was found by Nokia researchers who shared details about the incident.
Its attack campaign was exceptional, and many devices were also infected in countries like Mexico, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada.
Mitigate DDoS Attacks with SentinelOne
SentinelOne provides robust DDoS protection through its endpoint security solution. Its security capabilities can detect anomalous traffic patterns that indicate DDoS attacks and counter machine speed to disrupt the attackers’ ability to inundate your network resources. SentinelOne’s cloud-agnostic endpoint agent does not require cloud connectivity to operate and protects your systems when connectivity to the internet is cut off during an attack.
When SentinelOne detects DDoS threat indicators, it automatically groups related alerts into entire storylines, avoiding alert fatigue while providing your security team with actionable context. This approach makes interpreting the meaning of attack vectors easier and allows for rapid, automated response to emerging threats. The platform excels at fast, automated remediation by terminating malicious processes, shutting down and quarantining infected devices that may be a part of a botnet, and even rolling back events to restore systems to their pre-attack state.
SentinelOne’s architecture significantly simplifies security management and reduces infrastructure complexity. Since the platform consolidates multiple security functions under a single powerful console, you no longer need various solutions to mitigate different types of DDoS threats. The integration keeps attackers from exploiting gaps between isolated security solutions.
SentinelOne’s 24/7 SOC staff offers excellent monitoring and management, reducing your organization’s cybersecurity expertise gaps. Its security experts constantly monitor oncoming DDoS threats prior to their activation, improving your security position against such debilitating attacks. SentinelOne allows you to change your DDoS protection strategy from reactive to proactive, guaranteeing business continuity irrespective of sophisticated attack campaigns.
Conclusion
Securing your business against DDoS attacks needs vigilance, planning, and the utilization of the right security tools. With the best practices outlined in this manual, you can notably decrease your exposure to these disruptive attacks. DDoS protection is not an isolated activity but a recurring process of monitoring, analyzing, and enhancing your defense stance. Stay informed about emerging attack channels and defense strategies to safeguard your online assets as best as possible.
Don’t wait to fortify after being attacked. End-to-end solutions like SentinelOne can switch your DDoS protection plan from reactive to proactive. Do it now, audit your current security controls, identify potential weaknesses, and implement a multi-layered defense approach that will ensure your business remains up and running in the presence of evolving threats.
FAQs
What is a DDoS Attack?
A DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack is an illegal attempt to interrupt a target server, service, or network’s regular traffic by flooding it with an abrupt amount of internet traffic. Unlike common DoS attacks, DDoS attacks employ numerous hijacked computer systems as attack vectors, usually botnets consisting of thousands of hijacked devices. The attacks employ TCP and UDP protocols and conduct application-layer attacks on web servers, taking up resources so legitimate users cannot access services.
Why Are DDoS Attacks a Serious Threat?
DDoS attacks are a serious threat because they can completely take down your online business, causing enormous downtime and revenue loss. They typically serve as smokescreens for more destructive attacks like data breaches or malware infections. Financial loss includes direct costs of mitigation, indirect losses from reputation loss, and loss of customer trust. New DDoS attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with some capable of attacking multiple vulnerabilities simultaneously, making them difficult to resist without the right protection measures and tools.
What are the Types of DDoS Attacks?
DDoS attacks take many forms. Volume attacks overwhelm networks with high traffic employing UDP, ICMP, or spoofed packets to exhaust bandwidth. Protocol attacks attack server resources by taking advantage of network protocol vulnerabilities such as TCP using SYN floods. Application layer attacks attack web application vulnerabilities, appearing as valid requests while exhausting server resources. You can also encounter amplification attacks that amplify traffic volume and multi-vector attacks that employ several techniques to overwhelm defenses and make mitigation more difficult.
Can a CDN protect against DDoS attacks?
Yes, Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) can offer extensive protection against DDoS attacks by dispersing traffic across multiple servers globally. CDNs intercept attack traffic at the network edge, never letting it reach your origin server. CDNs include built-in traffic filtering features, automatically detecting and blocking malicious requests before they affect your infrastructure. CDNs also include traffic rate limiting and can scale instantly to address sudden traffic spikes. However, they are most effective when used as part of a complete, multi-layered defense strategy and not as an independent solution.
What steps should be taken after a DDoS attack to prevent future incidents?
Following a DDoS attack, perform a comprehensive post-incident analysis to determine attack vectors and exploited vulnerabilities. Revise your incident response plan based on this and install more advanced traffic monitoring systems to recognize early warning signs. Audit and harden your network design with better segmentation and consider increasing bandwidth capacity. Augment your DDoS mitigation strategy with specialist security services, introduce CAPTCHA challenges and cryptographic puzzles, and test your defenses regularly. Install security experts responsible for managing DDoS recovery processes and backup data regularly.
How does bot mitigation help in preventing DDoS attacks?
Bot mitigation prevents DDoS attacks by distinguishing between authentic users and malicious automated traffic. It applies techniques like CAPTCHA challenges, behavioral analysis, and device fingerprinting to identify and block bot traffic. Through these authentication processes, you can prevent automated traffic from reaching your resources and enable real users to utilize services without obstruction. These processes avoid hijacking your devices into botnets and can effectively prevent most DDoS attacks from causing any impact. Bot mitigation technologies are now a fundamental component of complete DDoS protection solutions.