DDoS Attack Simplified and Explained

Cybercrime is on spike more than ever. There are innumerable cases of online defaming, online theft, data breaching, and many more. While some attacks are made with an aim to steal data, attacks like the DDoS are aimed at hampering the business dependent on the website. All of these conditions call for a full proof web security.

The DDOS attacks can be lethal for business, and hence DDoS protection should be of high priority for every business. Like before taking remedies knowing the nature and scope of the disease is necessary, knowing the nature of the DDOS attacks is necessary before chalking out a DDoS protection plan.

What is a DDoS attack?

DDoS stands for distributed denial of services. The attack aims at denying access to the website to genuine users. It attempts on making the website invisible and inaccessible to the visitors on the website while the website shows incoming traffic to the website and the website is busy despite the users not being able to reach URL of the website.

The DDOS attack is usually made by flooding the host website with illicit users. The target website is made busy hundreds of IP addresses which are masked.

Typically, there can be two types of DDoS attacks

1. The attack at the application layer

2. The attack at the network layer.

One of the biggest myths that need to be debunked is that only large websites are attacked by DDoS. When a DDoS attack your website, it is the competitor that gain the maximum advantage. And every business, be it big or small has competitors. Every client you lose is a gain for the competitor. So, the attackers voluntarily attack any random website, or a strategic DDoS attack can be planned by the competitor to bring down the website. 

What happens to your website and business?

The attackers in a DDoS attack are able to modify the URL and direct the visitor to the website to an “Error” page. Not landing on the page when required is the worst thing that can happen to your website.

Many customers tend to trust your website on the basis of reviews that other customers leave on different platforms.

When your website is unavailable or unable to serve the client well, it reflects on the reviews of your website. This stops potential customers from trusting you and giving your business. This can be big harm when it comes to your business and profitability.

Since everyone is connected to your each other on the web nowadays, the news of your website’s dysfunction can spread like fire. This results in a loss of brand image which takes years to get established. To regain the brand image, it might take forever. Some businesses take a few days to recover while some take several months to recover from a DDoS attack. This makes it imperative to have a DDoS mitigation mechanism already in place.  

How to protect your website from a DDoS attack:

When it comes to a DDoS attack, various agencies offer protection. There are various security levels that you can have to keep your website safe from all the vulnerabilities.

A DDoS protection team analyzes the vulnerabilities that your website has that can be exploited by the attackers. The team also identifies the probabilities of you being attacked. The team devices a mechanism that will create a resistance to the attack on the different layers. These layers are mostly the application layer and the network layer.

The protection team keeps a keen eye on the activities on the website. If there is a sudden and unexpected surge in the traffic to the website, the team alerts the mitigation team and the mitigation team comes to the forefront and takes action on the attack.

Apart from appointing a third party for protection from DDoS, there are a few measures that you can take to protect the website from DDoS attack:

Monitor the traffic on your website: You should always keep track of the traffic on your website and look for irregular traffic. There can be several requests to your website from the same IP address. When this happens, it is the biggest cue for you. The suspicious traffic can be examined, and the users can be restricted.

Implement a maximum user alert on your website. When you decide for the hosting package, there is a certain bandwidth that the website can cater to without falling. This means that whenever the limit of the users exceeds the upper threshold, no more users can flood the website and you can save your server from crashing.

These simple tips can save you from a getting attacked by a DDoS attack and also save all the money that you will need to recover from the attack.