DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. DDoS attack is an attempt to disrupt an online service and make it unavailable by burdening it with traffic from multiple sources. Often multiple compromised systems affected by a Trojan virus are used to target a single online service or system making it unavailable.
While there are hackers who aim to steal your money or do some identity theft, some hackers have no such intention. All they want to do is to just disrupt business for your company. They can target a wide range of industries like banks, financial services, e-commerce portals, travel sites, news websites hospitality, healthcare or business websites.
When asked what is a DDos attack a precise answer would be DDoS attack aims to disrupt the normal function of a specific website. It is a planned and coordinated attack that makes an entire website unavailable for its regular visitors or customers, causing business loss for the company and harm to your business’ online reputation.
ddos attack
How can we prevent DDoS attack?
It is important to prevent DDoS attacks so as to ensure that your business faces no loss and you can maintain a positive online reputation. Here we will discuss the best DDoS prevention practices that will help you in not letting the hackers succeed.
Identify a DDoS attack early
You need to keep a close look over your inbound traffic profile to be able to identify a DDoS attack early in time. The sooner you identify the better since you’ll then be able to do something about it. You should know what your normal traffic looks like so that it would get easier for you to spot any significant changes to your inbound traffic profile. A major traffic spike may be a signal that you are under attack.
Overprovision Bandwidth
It is recommended that you have more bandwidth available to your server that you ever expect to need. This way you will always be ready to accommodate any sudden traffic spikes. Having overprovision bandwidth will likely won’t be able to stop a DDoS attack but it can always give you some extra time to take proper actions before your resources are overwhelmed with the traffic.
Defend at Network Perimeter
For those who run their own web server you can defend your site from a DDoS attack by taking a few technical measures to partially mitigate the effect of it. You can rate limit your router and prevent your web server from being overwhelmed. You can also add filters and make your router drop packets from obvious sources of attack or you can also set SYN, ICMP and UDP flood drop thresholds. These little steps can buy you some time to know more about what is a DDos attack and prevent it from causing any greater damage.
All you need is to be prepared for DDoS attacks and work constantly to eliminate vulnerabilities before an attack. If you be alert and cautious, you can easily prevent DDoS hackers from damaging your brand reputation or causing your business any loss.
