What is DDoS? How to Protect your network from it?

Think your site crashes, not due to technical issues, but due to being under a torrent of malicious traffic. DDoS is short for Distributed Denial of the Server, as its name rather clearly informs us.

It is a service mitigation attack in which numerous servers or machines spread over different locations are utilized in order to assault one web application or server. Target is flooded with a vast amount of traffic to halt its services.

The attacks are performed primarily for ransom by the attacker so that the website owner will pay for his services to be executed uninterrupted. The attacks can continue for days, beginning from hours.

Key Takeaways

1. A DDoS attack is a form of cyberattack where an overwhelming level of malicious traffic floods a network or a service. It renders the service unavailable for legitimate, normal users.
2. The distributed aspect traffic comes from many individual compromised systems, generally structured into a botnet.
3. The attacker commands the botnet to flood the victim’s IP address with a huge volume of requests.
4. Attack type depending on the levels of a network, DDoS attacks can attack different layers. Some of the most prevalent attack types like volumetric attacks, protocol attacks and application-layer attacks.
5. Protection is a process preventing a DDoS attack is not an incident, but a process. It requires a multi-layered, proactive process involving constant monitoring, a well-defined response strategy, and the right tools and services.
6. Symptoms abrupt and unforeseen traffic spike from a single IP or block, and complete site or online service outage.
7. Motivations behind DDoS attacks are diverse. Politically motivated (hacktivism), or simply entertainment or personal revenge.
8. The effect of a DDoS attack may be profound in terms of loss of business to businesses, loss of reputation, and operational disruption. It may also serve as a distraction while a more intrusive cybercrime is ongoing.

Common DDOS attack Types

DDoS attacks are generally classified under three wide categories: volume-based attacks, protocol attacks, and application layer attacks. Familiarity with these common types of attacks is important to choosing an effective defense mechanism and limiting the effect that they can produce.

UDP Flood

A user datagram protocol is used for DDoS attacks with the help of which some UDP. Packets were sent to the victim host on random ports so that the host is engaged in authenticating the following list.

1. Application listening at the requested port.
2. See that no application is listening.
3. Reply with a packet that the host is unreachable.
4. When the victimized host receives multiple requests.
5. They will be busy answering all packets and will be unreachable to other clients.

ICMP Flood

Internet Control Message Protocol, commonly known as ping by network analysts, is used in DDoS attacks, which helps attackers send multiple ping requests to targeted hosts and receive back the transmitted packets. There are several commands which can help in a DDoS attack, like ping -n, ping -t, and ping -I.

SYN Flood

In a regular connection establishment, a client sends a synchronization packet to the server in 1^st step, and in the 2nd step, the server responds with a sync-acknowledgment packet. When the host receives this packet, it replies back in the 3rd step with an ack. But in the case of a DDoS attack 3^rd step is skipped by the host either using a spoofed IP address.

Ping of Death

In this type, attackers send a ping request containing an oversized packet to the targeted host to crash or freeze the victim. A correctly formed IPV4 packet including an IP header is standardized and not more than the size of 65,535 bytes. If increased, it violates the internet protocol. So the attacker sends his desired bytes in fragments.

SlowLoris

SlowLoris is a software type that attacks the host shared server and not machines by sending multiple HTTP requests and keeping open sockets as long as possible to the server it is sending requests. It waits for as long as the whole server’s sockets are busy.

NTP amplification

Network time protocol is the oldest protocol on the internet, which is there so that the systems on the internet can synchronize their clock. When a DDoS protected attack occurs, it sent multiple requests to the NTP server by using the spoofed IP address or that of a victim.

HTTP Flood

Multiple HTTP requests are made to the targeted host in this attack by using GET and POST methods. A GET request is used to fetch standard, static content like images, while POST requests can access dynamically generated resources.

Zero-Day DDoS Attacks

A Zero-Day DDoS attack utilizes newly discovered vulnerabilities in software, hardware. Attackers take advantage of the opportunity gap to conduct powerful and unexpected DDoS attacks. All DDoS attacks which are unknown or new fall into this category.

How to stop the DDoS attack

There are several pre-emptive measures, which include checking your network traffic and Test Run DDoS attacks.

You can check your network by using google analytics to monitor any spike in traffic so that you can be ready when there is an active DDoS attack on your site.

Test run DDoS attacks are used to test whether your system can bear the DDoS attack or not following applications can be used, which are free and open source.

1. Low Orbit Ion Cannon.
2. UDP Unicorn.

Firewall installation

Implementing a firewall can also help in reducing the chance of a DDoS attack. You can also have a hardware firewall or software firewall.

Activity Log

You have to confirm that you are being attacked using the command prompt’s netstat command for this process. Later on, you can download any network analyzer and see anomalies in your traffic.

Install a malware security scanner

Installing a malware security scanner can also help scan all incoming data before entering it into the system. Moreover, it generates an alert when found some ambiguity.

Outsourcing

You can also outsource to protect your website from malicious DDoS attacks. For this, you can also contact your host and take measures like taking your website down temporarily and stopping DDoS attacks. When you get back online again, you need to bring either service from a security organization; some are Akamai, Cloudflare, Imperva Incapsula, DOSarrest, etc.

UltaHost Security Mechanism

Security is a top-notch priority in hosting. UltaHost has deployed an unbreakable and most advanced security system within our servers by keeping BitNinja on the channel as our Security Partner. It prevents users from DDoS attacks and all other security threats. And now, all our customers are super protected with BitNinja’s advanced security system.

BitNinja works as a frontline Army against all attacks. And are capable of upgrading themselves because of their self-learning algorithms. To read more about BitNinja security, check our blog — How are UltaHost servers secured using BitNinja.

Best Practices for Long-Term DDoS Protection

DDoS protection is not all about reacting to an attack; it’s about designing defenses into your network to survive threats in the long term. Through best practice, organizations and individuals can dramatically mitigate the risks of downtime and loss of money.

1. Update Systems and Software: Attacker’s usually target weak systems and unfixed vulnerabilities. Updating your operating systems, applications, and firmware closes those loopholes and bars cybercriminals from taking advantage of known weaknesses.
2. Get a DDoS Mitigation Service: Good DDoS protection service providers like Cloudflare, Akamai, or AWS Shield provide real-time filtering and traffic absorption of the malicious traffic before it ever even hits your server.
3. Use Redundancy and Load Balancing: To have redundancy in infrastructure using multiple servers, cloud hosting, and load balancing features is in a way that if one is attacked, others can still keep going with your services online.
4. Use Advanced Traffic Analysis: Constant monitoring by means of intrusion detection systems (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) aids in the detection of sudden spikes in traffic. AI-based solutions can even predict and strike back prior to deploying fully.
5. Train Your Personnel: No matter how robust your security is, it will not work if your staff is not ready. Provide cybersecurity awareness training so that employees can identify an attack in an instant and respond according to a well-documented response plan.

Conclusion

DDoS is extremely disruptive, but with proper proactive steps and preventive security approach, its effect can be nullified. Long-term security isn’t the technology itself it’s ongoing updates, training employees, and having a crisis plan in place. Keeping up with the most recent cyber threats.

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