How to Mitigate DDoS Attacks on My Servers and How They Work

Denial of service (DoS) attacks are one of the attackers’ favorite methods to render useless websites, different services provided on the Internet, and also directly servers. We also have a more dangerous and difficult-to-stop variant, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. In this tutorial, we are going to talk about how mitigation of DoS and DDoS attacks works to protect us from such popular attacks.

The first thing we are going to do is discuss what is a DDoS attack, how long they usually last and some myths related to this type of attack, which is so popular and used by cybercriminals. Later, we will discuss in detail the mitigation of these DDoS with different techniques that currently exist.

Mitigate DDoS Attacks on My Servers

What is a DoS attack, duration, myths and differences with DDoS

Denial of service (DoS) attacks aim to disrupt or weaken firewalls, online services, and websites. They do this by continuously sending millions of requests, saturating systems with malicious traffic or sending requests that have not been made legitimately. The difference with respect to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks is that, in the latter, the attack is executed by thousands of computers simultaneously, and not just by one of them.

ataque DDoS

The first step for a DDoS attacker is to get an army of compromised machines or bots . The next step is to manage that network of devices that they control from a remote location, focusing their attack on a single target . This set of compromised machines are known as botnets, and they can be used to carry out really harmful DDoS attacks.

One of the most used techniques to perform a DDoS attack is bandwidth saturation with large volumes of traffic. They can also do this by saturating system resources with semi-open connection requests or by blocking web application servers with voluminous requests for random information.

DDoS attacks are still a problem today. Although, it should be noted that DDoS Ransom Notes are a thing of the past. In case you don’t know, they are the type in which the victims of that organization or company receive a ransom note. In it, you are asked to make a payment to the cybercriminal so that he does not start executing DDoS attacks against your company.

Then there is also the belief that our internet provider (ISP) and cloud service provider protect us from these types of attacks. While partially true, the solutions and defenses they have are not always sufficient. Another factor to keep in mind is that the current trend is that DDoS attacks are lasting longer and longer. From time to time, we find that an attack can sometimes last between 5 or 6 days. This undoubtedly represents a detriment to the organizations, companies and victims who suffer it. In this article we have previously talked about the myths of DDoS attacks , something essential to really know what can and cannot do this type of attack.

Introduction to DDoS Attack Mitigation

We could define DDoS mitigation as the practice of blocking and absorbing malicious spikes in network traffic and the use of applications caused by DDoS attacks . Their goal is to allow legitimate traffic to flow unhindered, and affect the day-to-day work of that organization as little as possible.

DDoS mitigation strategies and technologies are intended to counter the business risks posed by the different types of DDoS attacks that can perpetuate against a business. These strategies and technologies used are intended to preserve an optimal functioning of those company resources that cybercriminals intend to paralyze.

DDoS mitigation allows us to respond faster to DDoS attacks. In this sense, criminals often use this type of attack as a smoke screen. Thus, they seek to camouflage other types of attacks, such as exfiltration, exploitation of security breaches, etc. If we are prepared, we will have more time and resources to prevent this possible information leak.

Strategies for implementing DDoS mitigation

When adopting measures that contribute to the mitigation capacity of DDoS to reduce the impact of these attacks, we can use several strategies. If we want DDoS mitigation to be effective, our first step must be to build a solid infrastructure.

The best way to start is by strengthening bandwidth capabilities, and then conducting secure segmentation of our company’s networks and data centers. Also, we must have a technique of establishing replication and failover without forgetting to configure applications and protocols for resiliency. We must also not forget to strengthen availability and performance through resources such as content delivery networks (CDN).

However, more robust architecture and CDN services alone are not enough to stop today’s DDoS attacks. In that sense, it should be noted that they require more layers of protection for effective DDoS mitigation. With increasingly large attack volumes that can even reach 1 TBps and long duration that can even exceed 5 days, it is necessary to seek new measures.

For that reason, effective DDoS mitigation must provide some method to eliminate bad traffic as quickly as possible without impeding legitimate traffic, connection requests, or application transactions. Thus, organizations can return to normalcy as soon as possible.

In that regard, companies must strengthen their DDoS mitigation strategies through effective incident response planning. Thus, they should prepare by following these points:

  1. Preparing response books for numerous attack scenarios to which the company may be subjected.
  2. We must periodically stress-test our company’s capabilities to enhance and secure our defenses against attack.

Technology and services that we can use for DDoS mitigation

The administrator of a network or the security team of a company, to perform the mitigation functions of DDoS, usually looks for technology or services. These are intended to help them automatically determine whether it is legitimate traffic or actual DDoS attacks.

Most DDoS mitigation strategies are based on traffic analysis . This method consists of monitoring traffic 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Its purpose is to be aware of threats and detect the first signs of DDoS activity, before it becomes a problem with unmanageable volumes of data, which affect the performance of the business network. On the other hand, organizations that do not have the staff to cover that cloud service often turn to managed service providers to fill that role. However, your own DDoS mitigation can minimize the cost of downtime as they can be put to work immediately and exclusively for it.

Monitoring is also often supported by anomaly detection technology . Using their threat intelligence sources, they track the latest indicators of compromise (IOC) related to the latest DDoS attack tactics. The experts then provide their answer manually or with automated technologies.

Business and DDoS Mitigation

Businesses frequently use a combination of local solutions such as DDoS mitigation appliances, firewalls, and unified threat management appliances, to block DDoS activity. However, it should be noted that this requires a significant adjustment of the devices and that the hardware also limits the amount of traffic it can absorb.

Ataques DDoS a las empresas españolas

Organizations that do not have their own equipment or infrastructure necessary to carry out this task are turning to cloud-based DDoS mitigation solutions or managed security solutions companies. Its operation is based on the monitoring and detection of anomalies that we have talked about before. In this way, when they detect malicious traffic or activity, the DDoS mitigation infrastructure will redirect that traffic through a cloud-based filtering system, before crossing the edge of the network, and will only let legitimate traffic through. the activity of the company continues as usual.

Lastly, while the initial response to the attack is automated through technology, effective DDoS mitigation also requires a well-trained team to make on-the-fly changes to scenarios. If a company owns its own, it is an added value for the security of the same.