A DDoS attack can completely shut down a business for hours or more, and the consequences of the downtime can be severe, affecting businesses and governments of all sizes. In 2021, Amazon suffered a direct financial loss of approximately $34 million due to a one-hour system outage that resulted in a significant drop in sales. Then, due to the interruption of Fakebook's service, Meta's direct revenue was affected to nearly 100 million US dollars.
Therefore, almost every enterprise with an online business needs to measure the cost of website protection and its return on investment. How to use the most reasonable cost to maximize attack protection is very important for every enterprise to consider question.
Fire Umbrella Cloud shares 15 exclusive tips to prevent DDoS attacks, hoping to help you prevent DDoS attacks more effectively:
1. Establish a multi-layer DDoS protection system
The current DDoS attack mode is very different from that of 5-10 years ago. Early DDoS attacks focused on volumetric attacks at Layer 3 or Layer 4 (protocol and transport layers). There are many different types of DDoS attacks today, each targeting a different layer (network layer, transport layer, session layer, application layer) or combination of multilayer attacks.
In addition, attackers are finding new ways to make websites inaccessible to legitimate traffic and deadly ways to exploit vulnerabilities to orchestrate highly sophisticated attacks. In this case, DDoS attacks cannot be prevented by simply increasing network bandwidth or using traditional firewalls. You need a comprehensive, multi-module, multi-layer DDoS protection solution to avoid various attacks, including application layer DDoS attacks.
So your solution must be scalable, with built-in redundancy, traffic monitoring capabilities, business logic defect detection, and vulnerability management capabilities.
2. Avoid being a broiler
A common tactic used by attackers is a DDoS botnet, which is a network of remotely controlled infected devices that flood targets with traffic. Assuming your machine is shut down by a DDoS attack, chances are the system will be compromised and used as a broiler.
In order to avoid becoming a broiler, corresponding precautions must be taken:
Keep your equipment and software up to date
Use strong and unique passwords
Beware of suspicious emails and attachments
Use a reputable anti-malware solution
Use a reputable VPN
3. Identify attack types
By understanding the characteristics of each attack type and identifying them quickly, DDoS protectors can respond in real time, effectively mitigating attacks before they cause significant damage. Identifying the type of attack allows for more targeted and effective defense mechanisms, such as filtering specific traffic or blocking malicious IP addresses. In addition, identifying attack types early helps predict and prevent future attacks and improves the overall security posture, so the ability to identify attack types before attackers launch an attack is an integral part of a DDoS protection program.
Generally speaking, there are three common types of DDoS attacks that enterprises may encounter:
a. Application layer ( L7 ) attack or HTTP flood attack
This application-layer attack targets applications that have requests from multiple sources. Such attacks generate a large number of POST, GET, or HTTP requests, causing service downtime ranging from hours to weeks. Due to its low cost and ease of operation, application layer attacks are widely used in e-commerce, banking and startup websites, etc.
b. UDP amplification attack
Attackers use open NTP request traffic to block targeted servers or networks. This traffic on L3/L4 (network or transport) intensifies with payload traffic and is huge compared to the request size, thus overwhelming the service and bringing it down.
c. DNS flood attack
A DNS flood is a DDoS attack against DNS (Domain Name System) servers that translate domain names into IP addresses. This type of attack is designed to flood DNS servers with heavy traffic, making it impossible for legitimate users to access targeted websites or online services.
4. Create a DDoS attack threat model
A DDoS Attack Threat Model is a structured method for identifying and analyzing the potential risk a DDoS attack poses to your online service or website.
Most Internet businesses struggle to handle inventory of web resources to keep up with the ever-increasing growth and customer demands. New portals, payment gateways, applications, marketing domains and other resources are constantly being created and eliminated.
And are your network resources managed in an orderly and orderly manner? Fire Umbrella Cloud has the following suggestions:
Identify the assets you want to protect - Create a database of all web assets that you want to protect against DDoS attacks as an inventory. It should contain network details, protocols in use, domains, number of applications, their usage, last updated version, etc.
Define Potential Attackers – Define potential attackers who might target your assets, such as cyber hackers, competitors, or nation-state actors.
Identify attack vectors – Identify the various attack vectors an attacker can use to launch a DDoS attack, such as UDP floods, SYN floods, or HTTP floods.
Identify Attack Surface - Determine the attack surface of an asset, including network topology, hardware infrastructure, and software stack.
Assess Risk Level - Evaluate the risk level of each attack vector by assessing the probability of the attack occurring, the potential impact of the attack, and the likelihood of detecting and mitigating the attack.
5. Set network resource priority
Are all network resources equal or which resources do you want to protect first?
Start by specifying the priority and importance of web resources. For example, business and data-centric web assets should be placed under 24h*7dd DDoS critical protection.
For example, Fire Umbrella Cloud usually sets three levels of network resources:
Key: Put all assets that could jeopardize business transactions or your reputation, hackers usually have a higher incentive to target these resources first.
High: This rating should include web properties that may interfere with day-to-day business operations.
Normal: Everything else goes here.
Decommissioning: A new classification can be created for domains, networks, applications and other services that are no longer in use and removed from the business operations network as quickly as possible.
6. Reduce attack surface exposure
By reducing the exposed surface to the attacker, you minimize the scope/options for them to orchestrate a DDoS attack.
Therefore, protect your critical assets, applications and other resources, ports, protocols, servers and other entry points from direct exposure to attackers.
There are a number of strategies that can be used to minimize attack surface exposure:
a. You can separate and distribute assets across the network, making them harder to target. For example, you can put your web server on a public subnet, but the underlying database server should be on a private subnet. Also you can restrict access to the database server from your web server and not from other hosts.
b. For sites accessible over the Internet, you can also reduce the surface area by restricting traffic to the country of the user.
c. Utilize a load balancer to protect web servers and computing resources from exposure by placing them behind it.
d. Keep the application/website clean by removing any irrelevant/irrelevant services, unnecessary functionality, legacy systems/processes, etc., which are often exploited by attackers as entry points.
7. Strengthen the network architecture
One of the key DDoS protection best practices is enabling the infrastructure and network to handle any thunderous surges or sudden surges in traffic. Purchasing more bandwidth is often recommended as an option. However, this is not a practical solution because of the enormous cost. Fire Umbrella Cloud recommends that you join elastic CDN services to help you take advantage of globally dispersed networks and build redundant resources that can handle sudden traffic peaks.
8. Know the warning signs
DDoS attacks include some very obvious network symptoms. For example, some common symptoms of DDoS attacks are unstable connections on the Internet, intermittent website shutdowns, and Internet disconnections. If these problems are serious and last for a long time, your network is likely to be attacked by DDoS, and you must take appropriate DDoS attack prevention measures.
Here are some warning signs that you may be under a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack:
unusually high traffic
slow or unresponsive website
internet connection problem
unusual traffic patterns
unexpected server error
Unusual spikes in resource usage
9. Black hole routing
Blackhole routing is a technique used to prevent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks by dropping malicious traffic before it reaches the target network or server. This involves configuring a router or switch to send traffic to an empty interface, or "black hole," effectively reducing traffic. Blackhole routing is often used to block traffic from specific IP addresses or subnets identified as attack sources.
Although blackhole routing is a passive measure, it can effectively mitigate the impact of DDoS attacks. It is important to note, however, that blackhole routing should be used in conjunction with other proactive steps to prevent DDoS attacks.
10. Rate Limiting
Rate limiting is a technique used to prevent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks by limiting the traffic sent to a network or server. This involves limiting the number of requests or connections that can be made within a specified time frame.
When the limit is reached, excess traffic is either dropped or delayed. Rate limiting can be implemented at various levels, such as at the network, application or DNS layer. By limiting the amount of traffic that can be sent to a network or server, rate limiting helps prevent resource overload that can lead to DDoS attacks. But it's important to configure rate limits carefully to avoid blocking legitimate traffic.
Measures based on real-time insights such as geo-based access restrictions, reputation score-based access restrictions, etc. go a long way in preventing DDoS attacks.
11. Log monitoring and analysis
You might be wondering how to stop DDoS attacks with log monitoring. Detecting threats quickly is one of the best practices in DDoS protection because they provide data and statistics about your network traffic. Log files contain data with sufficient information to effectively detect threats in real time. Using log analysis tools to detect DDoS threats has other benefits, such as making the DDoS remediation process quick and easy. When listing your website, traffic statistics show the date and time of the traffic spike and which servers were affected by the attack.
Log analysis can save you time by reducing troubleshooting time by providing advance notification of the status of unwanted events. Some smart log management tools also provide the information needed to quickly remediate and mitigate the damage from a successful DDoS attack.
12. Develop a DDoS mitigation plan
Defending against DDoS attacks does not limit prevention and mitigation, since DDoS attacks are designed to shut down your entire operation, most DDoS protection techniques are concerned with combating attacks.
Practice disaster recovery planning as part of regular operational maintenance. The plan should focus on technical capabilities and a comprehensive plan that outlines how to ensure business continuity under the stress of a successful DDoS attack. A disaster recovery site must be part of the recovery plan. The DR site, which is the staging site, should have a current backup of your data. A recovery plan should also include key details such as recovery methods, where critical data backups are maintained, and who is responsible for which tasks.
13. Get DDoS protection tools
The market today is full of tools to help you detect and protect critical network resources from DDoS attacks. These tools fall into different categories - detection and mitigation.
attack detection
Regardless of the layer of attack, mitigations depend on your ability to detect spurious traffic surges before they can wreak havoc. Most DDoS protection tools rely on signatures and source details to warn you. They rely on traffic reaching a critical mass, which affects service availability. However, detection alone is not enough, manual intervention is required to review data and apply protection rules.
automatic mitigation
Can DDoS protection be automated? Many anti-DDoS solutions direct or block bogus traffic based on pre-configured rules and policies.
While automatic filtering of bad traffic at the application or network layer is desirable, attackers have found new ways to defeat these tactics, especially at the application layer.
14. Reduce reliance on traditional firewalls
Although traditional firewalls have built-in anti-DDoS capabilities, they only have one method of DDoS blocking - an indiscriminate threshold approach, which blocks specific ports when the maximum threshold limit is reached, so traditional firewalls often fail in DDoS protection.
15. Deploy a Web Application Firewall
A web application firewall (WAF) is an excellent defense against all DDoS attacks. It blocks malicious traffic trying to prevent vulnerabilities in applications. WAFs support DDoS protection solutions with 24/7 monitoring by security experts to identify spurious traffic surges and block them without affecting legitimate traffic.
You can place a WAF between the internet and your origin server. A WAF can act as a reverse proxy, protecting servers from exposure by letting clients pass through them before reaching them.
