The DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks have become quite large both in terms of intensity as well as size. These attacks lead to a website disappearing from the face of the internet since it involves the bombarding of an IP address with huge volumes of traffic so as to disallow legitimate traffic to connect to it and to overwhelm the server. In a DDoS attack, the false traffic is generated from various sources but are orchestrated or controlled from a single location only. It becomes extremely difficult to prevent a DDoS attack since the traffic is often generated from IP addresses from all over the world. Recent surveys have also shown that these attacks have risen by as much as 22% in just 12 months and have also lasted much longer than the previous versions.

Save your sites by catching them young

The best mode of protection against DDoS attacks is by identifying these attacks as soon as they hit the site. The simple reason is that the faster they are detected, the quicker prevention measures can be implemented. Therefore, it is important that website owners familiarize themselves with inbound traffic so that it becomes easy to spot sudden changes.

Allot more Bandwidth than you are likely to need

It is always advisable for site owners to have more bandwidth space than their sites are likely to need to be able to accommodate a sudden inflow of traffic due to random surges which might arise out of an advertising campaign or a press release. While this extra space cannot stop a DDoS attack, it definitely offers site owners a couple of minutes to protect their websites.

Defending Network Perimeters

A few steps which can help in a slight reduction of an attack id by limiting the rate of the router, adding filters to allow the router to drop packers which have been received from known sources of attack, dropping malformed or spoofed packages and setting lower ICMP’s and SYN’s.

Calling up the Hosting Providers

Those users who do not have their own servers should immediately call their hosting providers to inform them about the attack and ask for help. Most sites have a better chance of fighting these DDoS attacks if the site is hosted at a professional hosting centre rather than being self hosted. Moreover, this also helps in the protection of the corporate LAN services such as emails so that they can function normally during attacks. Most hosting providers choose a null route in case of a huge attack wherein they drop all traffic to the site before it arrives.

Choosing proper DDoS Specialists to get the job done

In case of attacks which are quite large, the best chances of survival for most websites is to employ the services of specialized DDoS mitigation companies. These companies  boast of huge infrastructure and highly qualified personnel and are better equipped to fight large scale DDoS Attacks. These services can be opted directly or through hosting providers.

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