It’s no secret that distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks have been on the rise over the past several years — not only in frequency but in size as well. In fact, even some of the most seemingly secure servers in the world, including the United States Library of Congress server, have fallen victim to large DDoS attacks in the past.
Unfortunately, DDoS attacks are here to stay, so now is a good time for all website owners and administrators to make sure they’re as protected as possible. By having a better understanding of how DDoS protection works and what today’s top trends in DDoS security are, you can reduce your risk of falling victim to one of these potentially devastating attacks.
What is DDoS Protection and How Does it Work?
When a DDoS attack is deployed, a huge influx of fake web traffic floods the server of the targeted website. When a server doesn’t have DDoS protection in place (or has inadequate protection), this illegitimate traffic can slow the server down. This can result in users having problems accessing and using the site, and they may experience slow page load times. In the case of a large and severe attack, the server may be taken down completely.
When DDoS protection is in place, the server essentially has a “filter” that can weed out fake web traffic in real-time. This stops illegitimate traffic from affecting the server’s performance while allowing regular traffic to pass through to the site without delay.
Understanding Top Trends in DDoS Security
So far in 2019, we have seen a number of growing trends in DDoS security. Overall, there is a greater sense of urgency across Western countries to take DDoS attacks seriously. This may in part be due to several major players being publicly affected by large DDoS attacks in 2017 and 2018. Now that it has been made clear what type of damage these attacks can do, more people are becoming concerned with DDoS protection.
There has also been a recent increase in the number and severity of IoT Botnet attacks. An IoT Botnet is a group of infected computers and other Internet-connected devices that have been compromised for illegal purposes. Today’s IoT devices typically have limited security features – and attackers are taking advantage of these vulnerabilities by launching more frequent DDoS and ransomware attacks.
Despite the known risk in these types of attacks, another unfortunate trend remains. Many people continue to use outdated single-factor passwords as protection. This is especially common in online web hosting panels. By simply making the switch to two-factor authentication, many attacks could be thwarted.
What to Look for in a DDoS Protection Service
If your web host doesn’t already come with free DDoS protection, now is the time to start looking into adding some form of it to your dedicated server. While there is no way to guarantee that your server will never fall victim to a DDoS attack, having some form of protection in place can lessen your chances and give you greater peace of mind overall.
When looking at DDoS protection pricing, it’s important to assess how large of an attack a service can defend against. The larger the size, the better the protection you’ll have (and the more you’ll pay). Keep in mind that it is not unheard of to see DDoS attacks exceeding several hundred gigabits per second in 2019.
Staying on top of web security trends and making sure your server is protected from DDoS attacks is a must, so be sure to add DDoS protection to your hosting plan if you don’t have it already!
Looking to arm yourself against DDoS attacks? ReliableSite can help. All of our servers come with DDoS protection free of charge. Contact us today to get started.