How to Protect Your Digital Assets from Today’s Most Common DDoS Threats

A DDoS attack is when a lot of computers send too much data to a server or website, which causes it to slow down or crash. This can be very bad for businesses because it can cause them to lose customers, have downtime, and hurt their reputation. There are many ways to protect your digital assets from these attacks, which is a good thing. Let’s talk about some simple things you can do to protect your data online.

1. What Is A DDoS Attack

Before you learn how to protect yourself, it’s good to know what a DDoS attack is. A DDoS attack is like a traffic jam on the web. When a lot of people or devices try to get to a website or server at the same time, it can’t handle all the requests and either slows down or stops working.

There are a lot of different types of DDoS attacks:

Volumetric Attacks: Sending a lot of traffic to your server will make it crash. This is what a volumetric attack is.

Protocol Attacks: These attacks send too much data to your server, which slows it down, by exploiting flaws in communication protocols.

Application Layer Attacks: These attacks target certain parts of your app or website and use up all of its resources.

2. Install A WAF (Web Application Firewall)

One of the easiest ways to protect your website or app is to use a Web Application Firewall (WAF).

A WAF can help protect your site from common DDoS attacks by letting only safe requests through and stopping bad traffic. If you want to keep your website or online service safe, you need this.

3. Hire People To Protect You From Ddos Attacks

A lot of businesses offer DDoS protection. These services do a good job of stopping DDoS attacks before they get to your server or website. Fastly, Cloudflare, AWS Shield, and Akamai are some well-known services.

These services keep an eye on your website for strange activity and stop bad traffic on their own. You don’t have to worry about your site going down because they can stop attacks as they happen. One of these services is a great way to keep DDoS attacks from getting to your digital property.

4. Watch The Traffic To Your Site

Checking your website’s traffic often is another way to keep it safe. This can help you spot a DDoS attack before it gets too big.

An attack may be happening if you see a lot of traffic in a short amount of time. Tools that keep track of traffic patterns can help you quickly find and deal with possible threats.

5. Use Redundancy To Keep Your Website Safe

Redundancy means having backup systems ready to go. If one system stops working, another can step in. For example, if your website is hosted on one server and that server is attacked, redundancy makes sure that you can still get to the website from another server.

Cloud services are great for backups because they have servers all over the world. This makes it harder for hackers to take down your website because the traffic is spread out across many servers.

6. Limit The Number Of Requests To Your Server

Another important way to stop DDoS attacks is to limit the number of requests. Rate limiting controls how many requests a single user or device can send to your server in a set amount of time.

For example, rate limiting can stop one person from making too many requests to your website in a short amount of time. This stops your server from crashing when too many requests come from one place.

7. Use Anycast To Send Traffic To Other Places

Anycast is a way to send traffic to the server that is closest to the user. This can help keep DDoS attacks from hurting your website by sending traffic to many different places.

If one server is attacked, Anycast automatically sends traffic to another server that isn’t affected. This helps keep your website up even if someone attacks one of your servers.

8. Keep Your Software And Systems Up-To-Date.

Using old software can put your security at risk. Hackers often use DDoS attacks to exploit weaknesses in older versions of software. It is very important to keep the software on your website up-to-date, like firewalls and server software.

Regularly updating your systems will protect you from known weaknesses and make it less likely that you will be attacked by a DDoS.

9. Getting In Touch With Your ISP

Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) can help you keep your website safe from DDoS attacks in a big way. Many ISPs offer DDoS protection services that can stop bad traffic from getting to your server.

Final Thoughts

To keep your digital assets safe from DDoS attacks, you need more than one layer of protection. If you take steps to prepare for a possible DDoS attack, you may be less likely to be affected by it. These easy steps will help protect your website and online services from the growing number of cyber threats.