Creating Your DDoS Mitigation Playbook

Hiring an anti-DDoS company and then just sitting back isn’t an option for companies that want in-depth protection from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. To make sure your company is ready for any  contingency, having a detailed set of policies and procedures in place for what to do when a DDoS attack strikes is essential.

In a DDoS attack, a malicious hacker targets your website or computer network and tries to shut it down by directing a flood of bogus traffic at it. Without DDoS mitigation, a high volume or sophisticated attack will grind your system to a halt. Even attacks that don’t take down your website or network can significantly slow it down.

DDoS attacks are a huge problem for businesses. A recent report by Forrester, a leading industry analyst, said that major businesses reliant on online revenues can lose $220,000 per hour on average during a DDoS attack. Being prepared to mitigate a denial of service attack is an essential part of any company’s contingency and business continuity plan.

These attacks are not going away. DDoS attacks are growing in size, number and complexity each year and will continue doing so. More and more malicious hackers have the means and know-how to execute distributed denial of service attacks, and Internet hacktivists have found DDoS attacks to be a useful tool in achieving their ends.

Finding and hiring a strong anti-DDoS company can help protect your company from being devastated by an attack. To make your defense rock-solid, you need to find ways to work together with your DDoS protection service provider to mitigate DDoS attacks and to ensure that your employees know how to react when an attack strikes.

The first step in your DDoS playbook should be frequent testing and validating of your DDoS mitigation service provider’s ability to handle attacks. After hiring a provider you should collaborate to simulate attacks against your site to see how the DDoS mitigation service provider handles them. This gives you an opportunity to uncover any compatibility problems between you and your provider’s hardware and software. It also helps to pinpoint weak points in your technical infrastructure that you may be able to address.

Establishing protocols for communications during a DDoS attack is also important. Your DDoS mitigation playbook should have clear policies on how staff in various departments should relay information in the event of a DDoS attack, including procedures for reporting a suspected attack. You should also have preparations in place to update staff of progress in mitigating the DDoS attack.

Having key contacts identified in the event of a DDoS attack is important to prevent panic. By informing the right leaders about the attack, steps can begin to stop a DDoS attack and to also launch plans to deal with customers and keep your staff informed.

Having important information, such as key contacts, customer information, etc. organized in a way that is easily accessible in the event of a DDoS attack can also help limit its disruption of your business.

The proper anti-DDoS playbook will vary from business to business, but the important thing is to have a plan to continue operations of your company with minimal disruption during an attack while your DDoS mitigation service defeats it.

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Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.

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