System Failure: What Is A DDOS Attack And How Can You Avoid it
A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is a malicious attempt to disturb normal website traffic. Hackers involved in a DDoS attack flood a website’s servers with internet traffic with the intention of overloading the servers to prevent regular website visitors’ access to the website. This can prove catastrophic for websites as regular users who would normally perform actions such as purchasing products, accessing content or sharing content with others would not be able to access the website to do this.
How Does A DDoS Attack Work?
DDoS attacks are carried out by networks of internet-connected machines that are infected by malware, this allows them to be controlled remotely by the hacker who is conducting the DDoS attack. Each malware-infected device is referred to as a ‘bot’ or a ‘zombie’, this network of bots is known as a botnet. When the cyber attacker conducting the DDoS attack selects a network or an IP address each bot within the botnet will spam it with network requests with the intention of overloading the network. Due to the fact that each malware-infected device within the botnet is a legitimate internet-connected device, it can be difficult to separate legitimate traffic from internet traffic that is part of a botnet.
How To Identify A DDoS Attack
Websites that have suddenly become slow or unavailable may be currently targeted by a DDoS attack, but it is worth noting that an uptick in legitimate traffic could also cause this. Websites may have higher volumes of traffic on special days such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday which may mean that they struggle to keep up with demand, higher website traffic can also occur in the days leading up to Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Halloween.
You can pay a subscription to be able to use internet traffic monitoring tools that can help you:
- Monitor suspicious amounts of traffic originating from a single IP address or IP range
- Track unexplained surges to specific web pages on your website
- Monitor floods of traffic that share the same characteristics such as device type, geolocation or web browser versions.
- Odd website traffic patterns, such as spikes at weird times at night or patterns that seem unnatural such as spikes every 5 minutes.
What Motivates People To Attack Websites Using A DDoS Attack?
Financial Gain
Hackers target websites with DDoS attacks and then try to extort money from them for the attacks to stop. Hackers usually demand payment in the form of cryptocurrency to ensure that the transaction cannot be tracked by law enforcement agencies. By nature, websites will want these attacks to stop as soon as possible so that they can resume normal business as they will likely be losing out on potential profit as a result of their website being down. This may make paying the ransom fee tempting for companies, but it is advised that companies do not give hackers any form of payment as there is no guarantee that they will actually stop the DDoS attacks. Additionally, the hacker may target the company again and ask for a larger payment in the future.
Unfriendly Competition
It is possible, however unlikely that your business competition could be launching a DDoS attack against your website. This may benefit them because customers who are unable to access your website may instead go on the website of your competition, which may mean that customers purchase from your competitors instead of you whilst your website is down; meaning more sales for them and less for your company.
Read: Why Legal Software Is Important For Law Firms
Hacktivism
Websites can be targeted by DDoS attacks by activism groups who want to voice their opinions, it is entirely plausible that the activism may not be directed towards your company or anybody who works there, but if your website is big enough news of your website being a victim of a DDoS attack may end up in the news. This allows activism groups to be featured in news outlets which may advance their cause. However, it is also possible that activism groups may be targeting your company because of a decision you have recently made that doesn’t sit well with activism groups; targeting your company’s website with a DDoS attack may allow them to feel like they are being heard.
How To Prevent Your Website From Being A Victim Of A DDoS Attack?
Increase Bandwith
Increasing your website bandwidth can make your website more resistant to traffic spikes that may or may not be caused by a DDoS attack. It is important to remember that increasing your website bandwidth does not completely protect you from DDoS attacks, as they can still happen if hackers have botnets that are large enough. However, increasing website bandwidth makes it harder for hackers who try to carry out a DDoS attack on your website because they need to have botnets that are big enough to impact your site. Which reduces the amount of hackers that can impact your site.
Implement Server Level DDoS Protection
Some website server hosts offer DDoS mitigating tools within the price you are already paying, but some may charge an extra fee for this service. It is likely that DDoS protection will be worth it for your website as a precaution against future DDoS attacks that could cause significant disruption to your business.
Leverage a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A content delivery network is a group of servers that are geographically distributed across different locations so that they are closer to end users. This can mean that if your websites are attacked using a DDoS attack the website traffic can be distributed amongst servers in different locations to help reduce the impact of the DDoS attack. Also because the fact that servers are in different locations it is more difficult for hackers to pinpoint your original location to launch an attack.
Create An Action Plan For If Your Website Is Impacted By A DDoS Attack
Researching what the best course of action for your website should take if you are impacted by a DDoS attack and creating an action plan based on the information you have learnt can help you stay calm and composed in the head of the moment when you first realise your website has been impacted by a DDoS attack. Allowing you to make more rational decisions which will hopefully lead to better results for your website.
Conclusion
DDoS attacks can cause significant complications for businesses that often lead to loss of revenue, which is why appropriate resources are put into the prevention of DDoS attacks and businesses have an action plan in place for if the worst does happen. If your business has given hackers any sort of payment you may be able to get it back by contacting your bank or by contacting fraud recovery professionals.
