How to Stop a DDoS Attack Before It Happens

Originally published by New Context.

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For any business that primarily interacts and does transactions with users online, the last thing you want potential or long-standing customers to see when they are trying to connect with you is the dreaded 404 error screen. It is true that in some cases, this error could indicate a problem on the user side. For example, lack of memory or a slow network connection may be the culprit. However, at the other end of the spectrum, this error could indicate that your server is overwhelmed not by actual users, but virtual ones.

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Of the many types of cyber threats that your organization may encounter in the cloud, one of the most debilitating is a denial-of-service (DoS) attack. In the most severe scenario—a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS)—access denial is extended throughout your network causing multiple web servers to crash. Although DDoS attacks do not typically threaten your data security management, they can have sharp costs of lost time and real dollars. Hence, knowing how to stop a DDoS attack can be a lifesaver for your company.

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The Impact of DDoS Attacks

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DDoS attacks are not simple inconveniences. In fact, the loss of time and money can be staggering, as illustrated in the figures below.

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Image Source | A10 Networks
 

As the graph above shows, DDoS downtime impacts may last for anywhere from an hour upwards to a day and a half for companies that experience five or more attacks.

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Image Source | A10 Networks
 

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As you can see in the figure above, the cost to businesses for downtime has been on an upward trend. Obviously, these attacks can severely hamper your operations if you are exposed. Not to mention the indirect damage; such as the degradation of your reputation with customers and the general public. Before taking a look at how to best prevent a DDoS attack, let’s explore the different types.

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Types of DDoS Attacks

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It is not atypical for DDoS attacks to target various aspects of cloud computing deployment in order to take advantage of any vulnerabilities that may exist. The type of attack that you may face could be any of the following:

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• Volume-Based Attack: This is probably the most common and simplest type of attack. The objective is to flood your bandwidth such that it is virtually impossible for any legitimate traffic to flow to or from your site(s).
• Protocol Attack: Protocol attacks are based on making bogus or harmful connection requests. This method consumes the processing capacity of servers, firewalls, and other network systems. Attackers specifically target weaknesses in layers 3 and 4 of the open systems interconnect (OSI) model communication protocol structure.
• Application Layer Attack: These attacks are more sophisticated than volume-based or protocol attacks. Here, layer 7 of the OSI model is the target and applications are accessed that use up memory and disk space. These attacks present a greater defense challenge as it can be difficult to identify what is legitimate and what is malicious traffic.

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The perpetrators that use DDoS attacks often target large corporations and governments; however, no one is immune from being a target. Obviously, these attacks can wreak havoc by jamming your communications. The question is how to stop them?

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Preventing DDoS Attacks

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Generally, DDoS attacks are not threats to data or information compromise; however, they can severely hamper one of the tenets of InfoSec—the assurance of data availability when required. So, how do you stop DDoS attacks? Unfortunately, stopping an attack once it has started is almost impossible. Therefore, all efforts should be made to prevent these attacks before they occur. Fortunately, there are the following guidelines that can be successful in achieving this goal:

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• Limit application and port exposure
• Isolate internal traffic from the outside world
• Utilize proxy-based load balancing
• Use cloud provider autoscaling
• Leverage Web Application Firewall (WAF) features to help identify attacks
• Distribute network architecture globally

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Incorporating all of the above can help make your application deployment significantly more resilient to DDoS attacks. However, the most important thing to do is to plan for security threats, including DDoS attacks, in all phases of your development and deployment with a trusted security partner.