In July there was a large DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack thwarted. Cloudflare reported they thwarted an attack of over 17.2 million requests per second .Cloudflare is one of the largest DDoS protection companies in the world with a reach of over 25 million internet properties. Cloudflare states they typically see 25 million requests per second to illustrate the size of this DDoS attack. If this attack was successful, we most likely would have seen major internet outages and websites not functioning properly as Cloudflare is part of the internet backbone in the United States.

DDoS Attacks

So what exactly is a DDoS attack? According to CISA “A DoS attack is accomplished by flooding the targeted host or network with traffic until the target cannot respond or simply crashes, preventing access for legitimate users. In a DDoS attack, the incoming traffic originates from many different sources, making it impossible to stop the attack by blocking a single source.”

How can Small Businesses Prevent DDoS Attacks?

With the rise of DoS and DDoS attacks it is important to stop them from taking down your website, taking away your customer’s ability to reach and buy from your small business online. Customers may also be unable to contact you or see your offerings. Depending on the type of small business you are, a DDoS attack against you can also take down your customers’ or clients’ websites as well. According to CISA, “These attacks can cost an organization both time and money while their resources and services are inaccessible.”

Follow these rules

  • Buy more bandwidth
    • Buying more bandwidth will allow your website to handle large surges of traffic
  • Load balance your infrastructure
    • Do this by loading your infrastructure across multiple data centers, building redundancy
  • Deploy and configure firewalls
    • This remediates DDoS attacks, also consider utilizing web application firewalls and DDoS prevention appliances and services on your network
  • Consider utilizing cloud service providers
    • These can host your web services or website.

For more on DDoS attacks and other cybersecurity threats to your small business, check out Small Business, Big Threat!

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