7 Immediately Actionable Ways To Prevent DDoS Attacks

Distributed Denial of Service attacks don’t have to be inevitable.

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) is a specific type of cyberattack that singles out networks to overwhelm a system and deny service and functionality to end-users. These attacks use multiple computers loaded with malware to go after a single machine, overload it, and effectively shut down until the attack stops, or the affected network can regain control.

There are several forms of DDoS attacks out there, including DNS amplification, volumetric, and flood attacks.

In a DNS amplification attack, the bad actor takes advantage of a badly configured domain and converts small, typical packets of data into a larger payload the system is not designed to handle in such great volume. These overloaded payloads will bring an entire server down.

A volumetric denial of service attack sends an IP address such large volumes of traffic that authentic traffic cannot reach the server, thus making the website unavailable to end-users.

With flood attacks, a network of servers is flooded with queries that the targeted system will need to process. These can be self-replicating bots that inundate the targeted system and physically exhaust and damage the victim’s CPU or hard drive memory.

At first, it’s challenging to know what’s going on before it’s too late, and many victims of DDoS attacks find themselves suddenly helpless to do anything. Fortunately, there are some ways to prevent and minimize damage from DDoS attacks.

Have a plan

As with any kind of cyberattack or event that could disrupt your business or networks, it’s good to have a plan of action already drawn up and in the hands of those who can put it to work. That is the number one way to lessen the impact of any disruption or damage and save yourself a lot of time and grief in trying to recover. How you prepare for a DDoS attack will set the stage for how it will come to an end.

Make sure everyone on your team knows their role and responsibility in not only preparing for an attack but in protecting and recovering your sensitive data.

Recognize the warning signs

No system is entirely secure, and your network benefits from regularly scheduled performance and security checks. If performance lessens over a prolonged period, that’s a good sign that your network is under attack, and it’s time to take action.

Make your business aware of the signs of performance degradation. Other symptoms of incoming DDoS attacks include network slowdowns, chronic website shutdowns, or suspicious connectivity issues on your intranet.

Recognizing abnormal traffic with rate limiting

Rate-limiting is a standard tool used to defend against website DDoS attacks. When the rate of incoming requests becomes too much for the website to accommodate, rate-limiting restricts the allowable amount of incoming traffic. With rate-limiting, you can analyze whether the increased traffic amount is legitimate and if the system can handle that amount of traffic without affecting a website’s availability. One can even analyze individual packets and accept only the traffic that is deemed legitimate.

Remember, these are only monitoring techniques, not prevention ones. These reveal a problem could be occurring. Armed with this knowledge, it’s up to you to do something about it.

Stay on top of system updates

It should go without saying that making sure your systems and network resources are as up-to-date as possible. News of old security holes gets passed around the cybercriminal circles, and outdated systems become more prone to attack.

System designers are continually working at updating and improving security. As soon as vulnerabilities are discovered, they’ll send out notices and patches along with other important information. Don’t let these notifications gather virtual dust in your inbox.

Take advantage of the cloud

When DDoS attacks occur, relying only on your in-house hardware might not be the best idea. Unlike an individual network, a cloud-based system has more bandwidth and resources at its disposal.

For one thing, cloud-based applications can often red-flag suspicious traffic before it arrives at its target. Likewise, cloud services usually employ professionals specially trained to monitor and protect subscribers from concerted DDoS attacks.

You can choose the type of cloud setup you want — public, private, or hybrid. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, but a hybrid cloud model has the most flexibility in creating customized solutions for your specific type of business.

Protect your infrastructure

Typical, off-the-shelf networking equipment generally has little in the way of DDoS mitigation options. You may want to consider outsourcing some of your security tasks. Even smaller businesses can still take advantage of outsourcing by leveraging pay-per-use cloud-based solutions.

As for buffing up your business’s network infrastructure, take a look at such preventative tools like VPNs, firewalls, content filters, and anti-spam systems. These tools will all help in detecting suspicious traffic, blocking an attack, and minimizing the damage.

Backups and redundancies

The first step in recovering from any disruption of business is restoring data from previous backups. Of course, you have to have had a backing up system in place already. If you don’t back up your sensitive business data regularly, you should look into doing so now.

At the same time, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a backup network to switch to should your main one become overwhelmed. If one DNS server becomes compromised, another located in a different area can take on some extra traffic and keep your web servers online.

It is a proven security strategy to create redundant network resources. In this way, when a server is attacked, other components can handle the extra traffic. Also, try locating the backup servers in different geographical places to make it more difficult for attackers to target the system. This can be done in either the traditional manner or through cloud-based DNS providers, which can be spread worldwide, making the infrastructure more difficult to break.

Take action now to save yourself headaches later

Cyberattacks continue to plague networks worldwide, and it seems like they grow in sophistication with each passing year. Defending businesses from such attacks is an ongoing process and requires constant vigilance.

But it’s not a hopeless fight. You can defend your network from outside threats with a healthy combination of preparation, awareness, and the willingness to use the tools available.

Start early, and start strong. That will save you time, money, and a lot of unnecessary aggravation.

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