Anti-DDoS

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a type of cyber-attack designed to block access to a specific service or website by flooding it with excessive network traffic from many different sources. DDoS attacks are carried out by groups of hackers who use infected computers (called bots) to generate malicious network traffic directed at one or more targeted IP addresses.

A DDoS attack can be detected by reports of temporary unavailability or errors in corporate IT systems on the Internet. There may be other symptoms that indicate a DDoS attack, such as a decrease in network and server performance, an unstable environment, or an increase in the number of network errors. A definitive diagnosis of a DDoS attack can be made by monitoring and reviewing service and network traffic logs, and (optionally) verifying data with system vendors and Internet providers.

A DDoS attack is one of the most common threats to organizations on the Internet. The number of attacks is increasing every year. Worldwide, there are more than one million DDoS attacks per month, or tens of thousands of daily incidents. Due to their geopolitical location, Polish companies and institutions are at the forefront of attack targets, with several thousand daily attacks. Whether an organization becomes a direct or indirect victim of such an attack is an individual and unpredictable matter.

DDoS protection should be considered by any organization with services or websites that are continuously accessible to online users. DDoS attacks can have serious consequences for business continuity, such as loss of revenue, damage to reputation, or impaired access to services. In addition, a DDoS attack is often used as a cover for other cyber-attacks, such as industrial espionage or ransomware.

Organizations operating in the following industries are particularly vulnerable to DDoS attacks:

• e-commerce,
• gaming,
• financial,
• public sector,
• education,
• medical.

It is important to remember that even small and medium-sized businesses can be targeted by DDoS attacks, so every organization should consider securing its network infrastructure against such attacks.

The impact of a successful DDoS attack can vary, depending on the scale and sophistication of the attack, as well as the security level of the IT infrastructure. Examples of the impact of DDoS attacks include:

• inability to access services or websites,
• loss of revenue,
• loss of customer confidence, resulting in damage to the company’s reputation,
• loss of data, especially if the attack is combined with other types of attacks.

A firewall, a system that protects a network from unauthorized access, can only protect against DDoS attacks in the case of so-called small DDoS attacks (those that do not overload devices and links on the way to the firewall or itself). In this respect, a Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a more effective device, but one that is not immune to volumetric attacks at Layer 3-4 of the OSI model. No firewall alone can effectively protect against this type of threat.

A firewall filters network traffic by controlling which data packets can pass through the network. However, it cannot effectively block traffic generated by many thousands of bots, as is the case in a DDoS attack. In addition, the firewall system is ineffective against attacks that ultimately block the Internet connection, because anti-DDoS protection must be implemented in front of a device in the attacked organization’s infrastructure.

The key feature of an attack is its size, which generally exceeds the capabilities of the infrastructure under attack, and often the ISP’s protection capabilities. Therefore, for DDoS protection to be adequate, it must be provided from the outside (closer to the source of the attack) and in a distributed cloud infrastructure. The Beyond.pl’s anti-DDoS service offers such a solution. You should also pay attention to the response time to the attack (Time-To-Mitigate), which in the case of protection based on a distributed cloud environment, is much faster and more accurate than the response taken based on your own network monitoring.

Beyond.pl anti-DDoS protection can be activated within a few hours. However, please keep in mind that to be effective, the service needs time to learn the peculiarities of link usage to distinguish between normal (desired) traffic and an attack. This process can take several weeks. It is important to carefully analyze your network’s needs and choose the right solution that is both effective and easy to deploy. The Beyond.pl team can help you choose the optimal solution for your business needs.

The nature of DDoS attacks means that no one can provide 100% protection. At Beyond.pl, we use safeguards that are constantly updated to detect and filter all new types and methods of attacks. In addition, the system’s operation is monitored 24×7 by a team of SOC (Security Operation Center) specialists, who can react to an unusual attack even if the system does not detect it on its own. This minimizes the risk of a successful attack.

Yes, the anti-DDoS service offered by Beyond.pl includes support from SOC experts. They work 24×7, monitoring and responding to security incidents such as DDoS attacks. This is especially important in the case of new, unclassified types of attacks, which evade the characteristics to which automatic mechanisms are sensitive.