What Is DDoS Protection?
DDoS protection refers to the strategies used to protect servers and networks from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. These attacks aim to make online services unavailable by overwhelming them with excessive traffic from multiple sources. DDoS protection is crucial for maintaining uptime and ensuring services are accessible to legitimate users.
Implementing DDoS protection involves various measures, including identifying legitimate and malicious traffic. It helps mitigate the impact of attacks, ensuring business continuity. Companies often use specialized tools and services to detect and mitigate attacks before they impact service performance.
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DDoS protection tools are specialized solutions to detect, prevent, and mitigate the impact of DDoS attacks on networks, servers, and applications. They use various techniques to monitor traffic, block malicious requests, and ensure that legitimate traffic is not affected during an attack.
The main objective is to help organizations maintain service availability and prevent downtime caused by DDoS attacks. Some DDoS protection tools operate as cloud-based services, integrating with an organization’s existing infrastructure to provide scalable protection. These solutions can handle massive traffic surges by distributing incoming traffic across global networks or scrubbing it through filtering systems. Other tools are deployed on-premises, allowing customization and closer integration with an organization’s cybersecurity ecosystem.
DDoS protection tools typically include some or all of the following capabilities:
Traffic Analysis and Filtering
Traffic analysis and filtering techniques involve monitoring network traffic to identify and separate legitimate requests from malicious ones. By analyzing traffic patterns, tools can detect anomalies that indicate a potential DDoS attack, triggering filters to block malicious traffic.
Filtering works in real time, ensuring minimal impact on legitimate traffic. Traffic analysis aids in immediate threat mitigation and helps in understanding attack trends, informing future protection strategies.
Geolocation Filtering
Geolocation filtering involves blocking or restricting traffic based on geographic origin. This method limits access from regions known for high malicious activity levels, reducing potential DDoS attack vectors. Geolocation filtering is configured based on historical data and threat intelligence.
Volumetric DDoS Protection
Volumetric DDoS protection focuses on mitigating attacks that aim to overwhelm network bandwidth by sending massive amounts of traffic to the target system. These attacks, often referred to as ‘flood’ attacks, use techniques like UDP floods, ICMP floods, and DNS amplification to saturate the available network resources, rendering services inaccessible.
To counter these attacks, volumetric DDoS protection tools use high-capacity mitigation infrastructure capable of absorbing and dispersing the attack traffic. This often includes cloud-based solutions that handle large-scale traffic and reroute it through distributed networks.
Protocol-Based DDoS Protection
Protocol-based DDoS protection addresses attacks that exploit vulnerabilities in communication protocols such as TCP, UDP, and ICMP. Common types of protocol-based attacks include SYN floods and Smurf attacks, which exploit weaknesses in how systems handle network requests to exhaust server resources.
Mitigation of protocol-based attacks involves inspecting network traffic at the protocol level, identifying abnormal packet structures, connection attempts, or malformed requests. Tools often use SYN cookies and connection rate limiting to prevent server exhaustion.
Traffic Scrubbing
Traffic scrubbing involves redirecting traffic through networks capable of handling very high capacity and removing malicious packets. This process treats and cleans incoming requests before they reach the target server. Scrubbing centers use filtering mechanisms to ensure only legitimate traffic is allowed through.
Application Layer DDoS Protection
Application layer DDoS protection targets attacks that focus on the application layer (Layer 7) of the OSI model, where attackers exploit web application functions such as HTTP, DNS, or SSL. These attacks are more difficult to detect because they mimic legitimate user behavior, overwhelming the application server with seemingly valid requests.
Application layer protection involves deep packet inspection and behavioral analysis to differentiate between normal and malicious traffic. Advanced algorithms monitor patterns such as request rates and user interaction behaviors, flagging unusual activities that signal an attack.
Behavioral Based Mitigation
Behavioral-based mitigation focuses on identifying deviations from normal traffic patterns to detect and block DDoS attacks. By using machine learning and behavioral algorithms, advanced DDoS protection tools learn what typical user behavior looks like and distinguish between legitimate and malicious activities.
Once abnormal behavior is detected, such as unusual request patterns or irregular data flows, the system automatically triggers protective measures to block potential threats. This approach reduces the risk of false positives, ensuring legitimate users aren’t affected by the mitigation efforts.
Rate-Based Mitigation
Rate-based mitigation limits the traffic rate to prevent overwhelming a system. By setting thresholds for data requests, this technique controls high-volume surges typical in DDoS attacks. It’s applied across different protocol layers to prevent server overload.
Learn more in our detailed guide to DDoS mitigation.
DDoS protection tools can be hosted on-premises or in the cloud.
Cloud-Based DDoS Protection
Cloud-based DDoS protection offers scalable solutions by leveraging cloud infrastructure, diverting malicious traffic away from on-premise systems. These services detect, analyze, and block attacks remotely, reducing the operational impact on the target.
This model provides flexibility, allowing organizations to scale protection based on demand. Offsite protection ensures network infrastructure remains secure and accessible, enabling consistent performance during persistent DDoS threats.
On-Premises DDoS Protection
On-premises DDoS protection uses hardware devices installed within a company's network to monitor and mitigate attacks. These systems provide more control over security settings, allowing tailored protection strategies.
The proximity of on-premises solutions offers real-time attack remediation and integration with existing network infrastructure. These systems provide visibility into traffic patterns and customizable rules, suitable for organizations requiring internal control over their security measures.
Learn more in our detailed guide to DDoS protection services (coming soon).
1. Radware
Deployment model: Cloud
Radware offers a robust DDoS Protection solution tailored for online services. With a global network capacity of 12 Tbps, Radware is equipped to mitigate even the most sophisticated DDoS attacks. Their protection spans OSI layers 3, 4, and 7, ensuring comprehensive defense for web applications, networks, and data centers.
Key features of Radware DDoS protection:
- Network capacity: Radware’s network capacity of 12 Tbps provides substantial mitigation capabilities against large-scale DDoS attacks. This extensive capacity ensures that even the most significant attacks can be absorbed and neutralized without impacting service availability.
- Extensive protection: Radware’s DDoS protection covers a wide range of attack vectors, including burst attacks, DNS attacks, and encrypted attacks. This multi-layered approach ensures that various types of DDoS attacks are effectively detected and mitigated, providing comprehensive security for different applications and infrastructures.
- Global mitigation network: Radware operates 19 scrubbing centers worldwide, strategically located to mitigate attacks from the nearest point. This global presence enhances response times and ensures effective mitigation by distributing the attack load across multiple centers.
- Zero-day protection: Radware’s solutions include zero-day protection capabilities, which are designed to detect and mitigate previously unknown threats.
- Rapid deployment: Radware’s solutions are designed for quick deployment, allowing organizations to activate DDoS protection swiftly during an ongoing attack. This rapid response capability is crucial for minimizing downtime and maintaining service continuity.
- 24/7 support: Radware provides around-the-clock support, including real-time assistance from their Emergency Response Team (ERT). The ERT consists of 120 security experts who are available to offer immediate help and guidance during an attack, ensuring that organizations have expert support when they need it most.
- Behavioral-based detection: Radware employs patented, behavioral-based algorithms to automatically detect and block advanced threats in real-time. This technology helps identify new and unknown attack patterns, ensuring that even sophisticated and evolving threats are effectively mitigated.
- Flexible deployment options: Radware offers flexible deployment models, including cloud services, on-premises appliances, and hybrid solutions.
Learn more about Radware DDoS Protection Solutions.
2. Cloudflare
Deployment model: Cloud
Cloudflare offers a DDoS protection solution for online services. With a network capacity of 296 Tbps, it is able to mitigate very large scale DDoS attacks. Its protection spans OSI layers 3, 4, and 7, helping defend web applications, TCP/UDP applications, networks, and data centers.
Key features of Cloudflare DDoS protection:
- Network capacity: With 296 Tbps, Cloudflare's network is larger than the biggest DDoS attacks ever recorded.
- Rapid deployment: Allows DDoS protection to be activated quickly, making it easy to secure services during an ongoing attack.
- Global mitigation network: Mitigates attacks from the nearest location in the network, which spans 330 cities.
- 24/7 support: Provides around-the-clock email and phone support, with emergency response available for Enterprise plans.
- Extensive protection: Defends web applications, custom TCP/UDP applications, and network infrastructure.
Source: Cloudflare
3. FortiDDoS
Deployment model: On-premises
FortiDDoS is an inline solution to protect organizations from disruptions caused by distributed denial of service attacks. By automatically detecting and stopping attacks before they can impact services, it ensures that networks, applications, and services remain available to legitimate users.
Key features of FortiDDoS protection:
- Fully autonomous mitigation: Operates without the need for user intervention or additional subscriptions, automatically handling all aspects of attack detection and mitigation.
- Expansive monitoring: Monitors 230,000 parameters to identify and stop zero-day attacks.
- Packet inspection: All incoming traffic is inspected in less than one second, with no sampling, ensuring that the smallest packets are analyzed and threats are mitigated immediately.
- High small-packet inspection: Capable of inspecting 77 million packets per second (Mpps).
- Layer 4 and 7 mitigation: Mitigates complex attacks at layers 4 and 7, including TCP flag, DNS, NTP, DTLS, and QUIC direct and reflected attacks.
- UDP reflection mitigation: Monitors over 10,000 possible UDP reflection ports, providing coverage against reflection-based attacks.
Source: Fortinet
4. F5
Deployment model: Cloud and On-premises
F5 provides a DDoS protection solution to defend applications and critical infrastructure from disruption. It offers flexible deployment options and multi-tiered defenses that can be tailored to fit different business architectures.
Key features of F5 DDoS protection:
- Multi-tiered defenses: Mitigates multi-vector DDoS attacks that target critical infrastructure, key protocols, and application-layer business logic.
- Flexible deployment: Can be deployed according to different business needs, whether in the cloud, on-premises, or through a hybrid model that combines on-premises defense with on-demand cloud scrubbing.
- Continuous protection: The F5 Security Operations Center (SOC) provides 24/7, year-round monitoring and defense, staffed with experts.
- Cloud-delivered protection: Offers managed DDoS protection services that detect and mitigate large-scale volumetric attacks and targeted application assaults in real time.
- Hybrid mitigation approach: Allows organizations to control on-premises mitigation while signaling upstream to cloud scrubbing services during large-scale attacks.
Source: F5
5. Imperva
Deployment model: Cloud and On-premises
Imperva provides a DDoS protection solution that secures digital assets at the network edge. By offering visibility and optimized performance, it helps protect against network-level (Layer 3/4) and application-level (Layer 7) attacks, while integrating with existing security systems.
Key features of Imperva DDoS protection:
- Visibility: Provides real-time monitoring and analytics for network traffic and application performance.
- Instant attack notifications: Sends immediate alerts via email, SMS, or mobile app.
- Integration with SIEM: Works with leading security information and event management (SIEM) systems, enhancing the existing security infrastructure.
- Quick deployment and scaling: Uses a software-defined network (SDN) to enable automated tuning for rapid deployment and easy scaling.
- Traffic routing: Uses an Anycast network at the edge for optimal traffic routing, reducing latency and ensuring efficient distribution of network load.
Source: Imperva
6. AWS DDoS Protection
Deployment model: Cloud
Operating under a shared responsibility model, AWS protects its infrastructure using native DDoS defenses, while customers are responsible for configuring DDoS-resilient architectures. AWS offers two primary DDoS protection services: Shield Standard for baseline protection and Shield Advanced for improved mitigation and support.
Key features of AWS DDoS protection:
- Native infrastructure protection: Uses built-in protections against infrastructure DDoS attacks at layers 3 and 4 through Shield Standard, which automatically detects and mitigates threats without additional cost.
- Multi-layered DDoS mitigation: For advanced protection, Shield Advanced combines automated detection and mitigation with AWS WAF for application layer (Layer 7) attacks. It also integrates with network defenses such as Network Access Control Lists (NACLs).
- Scrubbing systems and monitoring: Uses scrubbing systems to clean traffic from DDoS attacks, implementing deep packet inspection, firewalling, and traffic shaping within Points of Presence (PoPs).
- Flexible deployment: Can be tailored to the application’s needs, including CloudFront for web applications and Global Accelerator for other use cases.
Source: AWS
7. Azure DDoS Protection
Deployment model: Cloud
Azure DDoS protection leverages Azure’s native integration and intelligent traffic monitoring, providing mitigation at the network layers (Layer 3 and 4). When paired with a web application firewall (WAF), it extends protection to the application layer (Layer 7). This turnkey solution is automatically tuned to protect Azure resources within a virtual network.
Key features of Azure DDoS protection:
- Always-on traffic monitoring: Azure DDoS Protection continuously monitors your application’s traffic patterns.
- Adaptive real-time tuning: The service uses intelligent traffic profiling to learn and adapt to the application's behavior over time, ensuring that protection is always optimized.
- Analytics and metrics: Detailed attack analytics and metrics are available during and after an attack, with real-time monitoring through Azure Monitor and integration with SIEM systems for visibility.
- Attack alerting and notifications: Configurable alerts notify users at the start, stop, and during the duration of an attack, integrating with Azure Monitor, Splunk, and other operational tools.
- Azure DDoS Rapid Response (DRR): During active attacks, customers have access to the DDoS Rapid Response team for real-time investigation and post-attack analysis.
Source: Microsoft
Conclusion
DDoS protection is essential for protecting online services and ensuring their availability during attacks. By using a combination of traffic analysis, filtering, and mitigation techniques, organizations can detect and block malicious traffic without disrupting legitimate user access. These protection strategies help maintain business continuity, minimize downtime, and protect critical infrastructure from the growing threat of DDoS attacks.
Learn more about Radware for DDoS protection.