How to Protect Your Website From DDoS Attacks?

Your system or network coming under a DDoS attack is a nightmare you’d never want.

However, adopting a proactive approach enables you to protect your reputation and save precious resources.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are cyber attacks that hit critical systems, putting servers in disarray.

Such an attack is the consequence of multiple malware-infected computers targeting a single system.

There are three major types of DDoS attacks:

1. Volumetric Attacks
2. Application-Layer Attacks
3. Protocol Attacks

Did you know that in the first quarter of 2020, Amazon countered a 2.3 Tbps DDoS attack?

In the past, the world’s largest internet services such as Reddit, Twitter, PayPal, and The New York Times have crashed due to such attacks.

Therefore, no business would like to risk staying unprotected and getting exposed to DDoS attacks.

In this blog post, we’ll look at preventive measures you can take to effectively secure your servers and protect your website from DDoS attacks.

Let’s dive in!

How to Prevent DDoS Attacks on Your Website?

Understand the Signs of a DDoS Attack

Understanding behavior symptomatic of a DDoS attack early on enables you to mitigate risks.

Slow performance, connectivity issues, and irregular web crashes are warning signs that a system is under DDoS attack. These need immediate action.

Make your team aware of DDoS attacks so that everyone stays alert.

Now, these attacks vary by volume. For instance, low-volume DDoS attacks are aimed at distracting your IT team and infiltrating your network.

Deploy Hardware and Software Firewalls

Deploying a Web Application Firewall (WAF) for sophisticated application attacks is a best practice. This will enable you to foil attempts at exploiting vulnerabilities in your applications.

In addition to this, you will also get protection against SQL injection attacks and cross-site forgery.

You can also create customized mitigation against illegitimate requests.

Firewalls help in mitigating attacks disguised as good traffic that are actually coming from bad IPs and unexpected geographies.

Leverage Cloud-Based Services

Outsourcing DDoS attack prevention to the cloud brings you a number of benefits. These are as follows:

a. Cloud providers offer high levels of cybersecurity with firewalls and threat-monitoring software.

b. In case there is an increase in the magnitude of DDoS attacks, on-premises hardware could fail. On the other hand, the cloud has more bandwidth than a private network.

c. The cloud is also able to absorb malicious traffic.

d. Since cloud-based services are operated by software engineers, monitoring the latest tactics of launching DDoS attacks can help you plan well in advance.

e. Reputed cloud service providers offer duplicating copies of your data as well as network redundancy, so that in case your service gets corrupted, you can switch to secure access on a backed-up version.

Conduct a Network Vulnerability Assessment

Performing a network vulnerability assessment on time will secure your website from malicious activities.

In addition to this, you’ll know well in advance of any threats or weaknesses present in your network/system/application, enabling you to secure your network..

Maintain an inventory of devices on your network and mark threats detected, if any. This will help your organization to be prepared for making security investments.

Purchase More Bandwidth

You can create DDoS-resistant VPN-hosting infrastructure if you have sufficient bandwidth to manage spikes in traffic.

Since these spikes may arise due to malicious activities, having bandwidth can protect you from attackers trying to launch a DDoS attack.

Increased bandwidth means raising the bar, which the attacker will have to overcome in order to launch a successful attack.

Build Redundancy Into Your Infrastructure

Data centers connected to varied networks ensure that there is no network congestion or points of failure on the servers.

In fact, spreading your servers across multiple data centers with a decent load balancing system protects your system from DDoS attacks.

If these servers are arranged in different geographical locations, it will be even more difficult for someone to launch a successful attack.

Be Aware of Cyber Security Trends

Did you know that 43% of employees are unaware that clicking an unknown attachment can lead to malware infection?

Therefore, being aware of the latest cybersecurity trends and planning your response accordingly is a best practice.

Having prior knowledge of effective cybersecurity measures will enable you to quickly establish a response team capable of responding to security breaches.

Make cybersecurity best practices a part of your company’s work culture.

Review Security Configurations

Being proactive is key to protecting your company or business website from a DDoS attack.

Focus on equipping your infrastructure with multi-level protection strategies. Use VPNs, content filtering and security layers to monitor threats.

Regularly reviewing security configurations and installing patches and updates from time-to-time also comes under good cybersecurity hygiene.

Key Takeaway

Preventing your network from turning hostile is of paramount importance.

The tips mentioned in this blog post are just some of the many ways through which you can build a reliable network while securing your devices.

Making these pro-tips a part of your cybersecurity curriculum will enable you to prevent DDoS attacks and secure your website effectively.

Need Cyber Security Assistance for Your Website? Contact Us!