DDoS attacks just hit catastrophic levels (here's how to survive)

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack isn't an AI-powered cyberattack. However, these attacks can also cause severe business disruption.

Recently, DDoS incidents across the world started reaching unprecedented levels. In mid-May, threat actors set in motion the most significant DDoS attack in history. Fortunately, robust defenses were able to fend off an attack with a staggering 7.3 terabits per second (Tbps).

DDoS attacks work by flooding legitimate web services with excessive traffic, rendering them inaccessible to users. Each website can handle only a specific number of requests per minute. Whenever that number is exceeded, it can lead to degraded performance and failure.

This scenario sometimes plays out on Black Friday when e-commerce platforms struggle to handle an overwhelming volume of legitimate traffic. The same is true for web applications and the servers they run on. This is because web apps can only handle a fixed number of requests, while the servers they run on can only manage a set number of simultaneous requests.

Threat actors deploy networks of infected devices, known as botnets, to generate massive traffic volumes that crash target systems. These DDoS attack types are often broadly categorized into three main types, usually explained in relation to the OSI model: 

• Volumetric attacks: The most prevalent DDoS method, these assaults flood network capacity with enormous data volumes, rendering systems unreachable to legitimate users.
  • DDoS attack examples include UDP floods, ICMP (ping) floods, DNS Amplification attacks, and connection exhaustion attacks.
• Protocol attacks: These assaults target vulnerabilities in network communication standards to exhaust server resources and overwhelm infrastructure components such as firewalls.
  • Typical DDoS attack examples encompass SYN flooding techniques, fragmented packet exploits, Ping of Death methods, and Smurf attack variants.
• Application layer attacks (layer 7): The most advanced DDoS method, these target individual web services and applications to consume their processing capacity. By imitating normal user behavior, they are extremely difficult to identify and block.
  • DDoS attack examples include HTTP floods, Slowloris, Slow Post, and Slow Read attacks. 

DoS and DDoS are both types of denial-of-service attacks; the primary difference between the two lies in their source, complexity, impact, and mitigation strategies. 

DoS attacks are relatively simple, launched from a single system or computer, and are limited in scale. Its impact is limited to the resources and bandwidth of the attacking system, but DoS attacks can still degrade performance and take down smaller websites and systems.

DDoS attacks are more complex and often involve malware that's distributed across multiple devices, creating a botnet, and controlled by the attacker. This means significantly larger scale and capabilities. 

The distributed nature of these attacks, spanning countless IP addresses and varied origins, complicates identification efforts and makes it hard to differentiate between authentic and malicious traffic. These attacks can cause severe disruptions and derail business continuity by taking down entire networks, including major websites with a significant user base.

Specific DoS attack statistics are rare in cybersecurity reports. This is because DDoS attack statistics dominate due to their scale and impact. However, DoS attacks still occur, often executed by individual actors or small groups with tools like Low Orbit Ion Cannon.

Legitimate network activity follows predictable patterns, providing a sense of security. However, DDoS attacks disrupt this norm, generating suspicious traffic spikes that can originate from unusual geographic locations or unfamiliar sources.

Network monitoring tools will play a critical role in this process. They can highlight these irregular patterns through traffic analysis, providing reassurance by helping to distinguish between genuine user requests and malicious activity.

Monitoring dashboards reveal telltale signs, including unexpected bandwidth consumption, unusual request volumes, and geographic traffic shifts that don't align with normal user behavior. Web server logs may also show strange request patterns that clearly differ from typical visitor activity.

When any of the above manifest, early detection is key. Recognizing these warning signs promptly empowers your security team to respond swiftly, taking control and minimizing the financial impact of an attack.

In summary, it's safe to say that we cannot overlook the threat posed by DDoS attacks. These attacks pose a significant risk with the potential of causing average losses of $270,000 per incident.

To combat these threats, organizations must adopt proactive, multi-layered defenses. This includes traffic monitoring, establishing robust infrastructure, and creating rapid incident response plans. 

With attacks averaging 45 minutes and incurring losses of approximately $6,000 per minute, early detection and prompt mitigation are crucial for maintaining business continuity and safeguarding digital assets.