What is a DDoS attack? Threats and how to protect yourself against them

A hacker working on a keyboard in a dark environment with the text 'distributed denial of service' overlaid on the image, representing a DDoS attack in a cybersecurity context.

Hacking attacks are not limited to stealing valuable resources or infecting systems with malware. One of the most dangerous, and gaining popularity, can also befall your business. Find out what a DDoS attack is, and how to recognise and defend against it.

What is a DDoS attack?

A DDoS attack is one of the most common cyber crimes in recent times. It does not involve the direct theft of individual data, the spreading of viruses or attempts to deceive users of the infected network.

What does DDoS mean? An abbreviation for distributed denial of service, the action aims to completely paralyse the availability of a company’s online resources.

How does a DDoS attack work?

Surely you have ever been in a situation where you have overloaded your computer with too many commands. In some cases, this leads to the system ‘crashing’ and total paralysis. This is exactly how DDoS attacks can be described.

Here, however, everything happens on a much larger scale. The hackers use the gigantic resources stored on other infected computers. Activities are carried out by botnets, i.e. devices over which control has been taken via malware.

From these, fake requests for services offered by the target of the attack are sent. For example – if you have an online shop, hackers make automated attempts to call up your domain, product offers etc. The requests also flood your mailbox and other networks belonging to your company.

Bear in mind that we are not talking about hundreds or thousands, but millions of requests per second.

As a result, the entire network belonging to the attacked company is down. It is not only the employees who are helpless and cannot carry out the requested operation, but also the customers who are deprived of the possibility to act. Every second of inactivity translates into gigantic monetary losses.

Largest DDoS attacks in history

In October 2023, the largest hacking activity of its kind in history was widely publicised. The target of the DDoS attack was Google’s servers, which were hit by approximately 400 million simultaneous requests per second . Appropriate defence strategies and early recognition of the attack made it possible to stop the onslaught and save the company from multimillion-dollar losses.

A few months earlier, the Mountain View-based company had survived a series of similar actions.

A DDoS attack was also reported in August 2020. At that time, the New Zealand Stock Exchange, among others, was infected . As a result, none of the services associated with the institution were operational for three days. The impact of the DDoS attack was lamentable, resulting in millions of dollars in losses.

This type of hacking activity occurs regularly and every now and then you hear in the media about another spectacular attempt to infect major companies from around the world. However, this does not mean that cybercriminals only focus on global hegemons.

DDoS threats are a real problem for smaller businesses, whose representatives are often unaware of how protection against attacks works.

DDoS attacks – why are they so dangerous?

Infographic on the threats of DDoS attacks, highlighting risks such as website inaccessibility, SLA penalties, inability to handle hackers, and total domain infection, featuring a red hacker icon on a dark background.

Despite the existence of many more radical methods of hacking, DDoS attacks are one of the biggest threats in cyberspace. They are difficult to both detect and stop.

Internet threats involving DDoS attacks:

  • Inaccessibility of a website – when an attack occurs on the web server where a website is hosted, it becomes inaccessible. Every second can contribute to a drop in popularity, shaken trust and loss of customers.
  • Penalties for not meeting the SLA (Service Limit Agreement) – financial losses to the company can result not only from the departure of regular and rejection of potential partners, but also, for example, penalties for not meeting the SLA.
  • Inability to deal with hackers – any form of DDoS attack is extremely difficult to disrupt, especially for smaller companies. Sometimes the scale of the action exceeds their capacity, with the result that paralysis lasts for a very long time.

Complete domain infection – if a particular company offers multiple services on different sites, disruption will reach each of them.

Protecting against DDoS attacks is a big challenge because they are distributed. They infect multiple sources, making it impossible to simply disconnect access to a specific address.

As we have already mentioned, infected computers, among others, are used to carry them out. They infect multiple sources, making it impossible to simply disconnect access to a specific address.

Cybercriminals use various types of DDoS attacks, including masking their IP addresses. All of this makes it difficult to combat malicious activity.

Protection against DDoS attacks. How to prevent them?

There are ways to combat hackers that translate into effective counteraction and prevention.

How to prepare for DDoS? What are the methods and types of protection? These are the most frequently asked questions on this issue. One of the more popular answers is to filter website traffic more frequently and more thoroughly and to use special protection servers.

How to fend off a DDoS attack in other ways? Among other things, many companies undertake traffic suppression, which involves filtering out invalid requests as they are sent. The use of special software, for example, helps with this.

Their activities also include identifying and countering DDoS attacks by monitoring traffic or providing technical support.

How do you protect yourself with another method? You can simply expand the capacity of your servers and services so that they are able to handle more requests simultaneously. The source of the DDoS attack can then be stopped, and even if the attack is successful, the mitigation will be much faster.

What is a DDoS attack – FAQ

Are you interested in hacking topics and in particular what a DDoS attack looks like? Find out the answers to the most frequently asked questions!

What is a DDoS attack?

DDoS attacks on enterprises, companies and institutions consist in a mass loading of WWW servers belonging to the victims. A gigantic number of commands and requests in one moment completely paralyses then websites and services of given brands.

How to carry out a DDoS attack?

How can a DDoS attack be carried out? The most common way is to use ‘botnets’, i.e. virus-infected computers. Up to several million requests per second can be sent from these.

What are the risks of a DDoS attack?

The consequences of a DDoS attack carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years, and blackmailing with this type of action is also prohibited.

How to block a DDoS attack?

Anti-DDoS protection involves, among other things, the use of several high-throughput servers which can cope with the load during an attack. There is also special software available to monitor traffic and filter queries.

Where to report a DDoS attack?

If you fall victim to a DDoS attack, you should report it to the police. You can also ask for help from your internet provider or the service provider of the server on which your website is set up.

How long does a DDoS attack last?

How long does a DDoS attack last on average? This depends on the response time and the intensity of the hackers. Sometimes the effects stop after a few hours, other times we may suffer the effects for up to several weeks.

How do you recognise a DDoS attack?

If we want to recognise DDoS attacks, we need to monitor the traffic on our servers. If all of our services and websites stop working at once, then we may be dealing with this type of attack.

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