If firms and their cybersecurity teams understood how to stop DDoS attacks right in their tracks, then that could make all the needed difference, especially when it comes to keeping the firm thriving and preventing it from going bust.

Speaking of preventing firms from going bust, can a DDoS attack make it go bust? As per reports about most DDoS attacks, it is true. A successful DDoS attack is horrendous in nature, it can remove an organization’s presence from the internet and can even overturn its ability to interact with clients and customers.

If there is an entity that has been a victim of a DDoS attack, they should know that they are not alone in this matter. Well-known firms and entities have fallen victims to DDoS attacks since 2018 to date. Among them are Amazon, GitHub, Google, Pinterest and PlayStation.

GitHub was on the receiving end in 2018 when it endured a DDoS attack of the highest volume, and the attack was one of a kind witnessed by the business and tech world.

A small refresher about a DoS attack

As a reminder from experts at a best DDoS protection agency in New York, an elementary denial of service (DoS) attack consists of bombarding an IP address with an unbearable volume of fake traffic. If the IP address points to a web server, then it will be overwhelmed.

This results in legitimate internet traffic unable to contact the main server. When the website is not available, service is denied. Hence, its name defines its nature of attack.

Proven tips for stopping DDoS attacks right in their tracks

Here are some proven tips that can help each business entity stop a DDoS attack before it can cause a lot of damage.

Early identification of the DDoS attack

Those who are managing and running their own servers need to be able to identify when they are under attack. This is because the earlier they can establish problems on a website caused by a DDoS attack, the sooner they can act to stop it.

In order to be in a position to do it, it is a smart idea for cyber security teams at organizations to familiarize themselves with their typical inbound traffic profile. Why? Because the more they understand what their normal traffic is like, the easier it is for them to spot any anomalies in it.

A majority of DDoS attacks begin with sharp spikes in the internet traffic. It is helpful to spot the difference between a sudden influx of legitimate visitors and the initiation of a DDoS attack.

Moreover, it is also a good idea for organizations to nominate a DDoS leader amongst their employees as they are responsible for taking action, should it come under attack.

Flooding bandwidth

In general sense, it is a good thing to have more bandwidth available to the web server than what firms thought was originally needed. In this way, they can accommodate a sudden and unexpected influx of internet traffic resulting from an advertising campaign, a discount offer, or even through the company getting mentioned on a social media platform.

Even if organizations exceed bandwidth provision by 100 percent (or even by 500 percent), the likelihood of it stopping a DDoS attack is low. But it can give the organization facing the attack time to act before its resources are overwhelmed.

Defense at the network’s perimeter (for firms running their own web servers)

There are some technical measures that can be taken to partially reduce the effect of a DDoS attack (particularly in the early stages). They are simple and are as under:

• Rate limits the router to prevent the web server from being overwhelmed.
• Adding filters instructing routers to drop packets from obvious sources of an attack.
• Timing out half-open connections quickly.
• Dropping malformed packages.
• Setting lower SYN, ICMP and UDP flood drop thresholds.

However, in honesty, these steps were effective in the past. Now, DDoS attacks have become large in volume and these measures may not be able to stop one completely. What is the most an organization can do? Simple; hope that the attackers buy them some time as soon as an attack gains strength.