DDoS Attacks and Protection

by Jennifer Watson Blogger | Writer | Social Media Geek

A DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack makes online services unavailable. This is done by overwhelming online services with traffic from multiple sources. Hackers target a wide variety of important resources, from banks to news websites. This makes it near impossible for people to publish or access important information.

Types of DDoS Attacks:

There are four main categories of DDoS attacks.

1. TCP Connection Attacks

TCP connection attacks work by occupying connections. The main goal behind these attacks is to use all the available connections to infrastructure devices like application servers, load balancers, and firewalls. TCP connection attacks can even take down those devices that can maintain state on millions of connections.

2. Volumetric Attacks

Volumetric attacks work by using up bandwidth. These types of attacks consume the bandwidth within target network/service and the rest of the Internet or within the target network/service. The main goal behind these attacks is to cause congestions.

3. Fragmentation Attacks

Fragmentation attacks send a flood of UDP or TCP fragments to the victims. This completely overwhelms the victim’s ability to reassemble the streams which, in turn, reduce their performance.

4. Application Attacks

As the name suggests, application attacks work by directly targeting the applications. The main goal here is to overwhelm a precise aspect of either an application or a service. Application attacks are very effective even with very few machines generating a low traffic rate.

Amplification Types

The most problematic aspect of DDoS attacks is that there are ways through which the attacks mentioned above can multiply the traffic they send.

1. DNS Reflection

This type of attack amplification method is also called “small request, big reply attack” because malicious entities start by sending a very small request to the DNS server. After that, they ask the server to a very large reply to the intended victim. This amplifies the original attack and effectively overwhelms the target.

2. Chargen Reflection

Even today, a lot of computers and internet connected printers support Chargen which is a very outdated service. Chargen allows someone to ask the device to reply with a steady stream of random characters. Chargen is mostly used to amplify attacks very similar to DNS attacks.

DDoS Protection

The best way to effectively protect your business from any form of DDoS attack is to hire a competent security service. The Australian based company Lean Security specializes in managed security testing service that guarantee the overall protection of your web and mobile application.

The DDoS Protection Service offered by Lean Security adds a barrier between outside sources and your web servers which, in turn, block out traffic that appears to be malicious or attacking in nature.

DDoS Protection Services especially come handy for E-Commerce websites, where if an overload of malicious traffic attacks occurs then the website gets shut down and affects your businesses’ ability to earn money.

Lean Security’s DDoS Protection Service offers:

· Comprehensive DDoS Protection

· Easy and Fast Implementation

· Managed by Security Professionals

To avail Lean Security’s security testing services, check out http://www.leansecurity.com.au/