Discovering DDoS Protection Approaches

Owing to the complexity of IT infrastructures and the expertise of prospective attackers, the best mitigation strategy would concentrate on a wide range of attack routes. Before focusing on individual DDoS security suppliers, it's necessary to know the topology, benefits and drawbacks of various defence choices, and the types of DDoS attacks they can block.

DDos Threat Mitigation Tools

Essentially, there are five different locations for DDoS threat mitigation tools to be deployed:

• On-premises
• ISPs
• Cloud WAFs
• Scrubbing centres
• Public CSPs (cloud service providers)

On-Premises

A dedicated hardware appliance or an on-premises web application firewall (WAF) deployed in the data centre provides on-premises DDoS protection. These enable users to defend against layer 3 and 4 network attacks as well as application-level attacks (using the on-premises WAF).

The main disadvantage of on-premises defence is its inability to successfully block DDoS attacks that are greater than the internet pipe. This implies that if the network pipe becomes saturated as a result of the attack volume, the defence will be rendered ineffective. Since the WAF is primarily designed to protect against network intruders and data theft, another drawback is the lack of scalability needed to block large network and application layer attacks. Overall, on-premises DDoS protection has become less popular in recent years as most organizations move to cloud-based solutions.

ISPs

Many internet service providers (ISPs) provide DDoS protection for businesses. To begin with, this option only protects from network layer vulnerabilities and not against application-level assaults. Another significant disadvantage is that small and medium ISPs are unable to prevent large-scale volumetric assaults. Large ISPs, such as AT&T in the U. S., are an exception since they have the capacity to withstand volumetric attacks.

Furthermore, because DDoS security is not an ISP's core business, its employees generally lack the requisite knowledge to respond quickly. This can be a life-changing realization to realize in the midst of an attack.

Cloud WAFs

With the migration of applications from private data centers to the cloud, cloud-based DDoS protection solutions have become more popular than on-premises alternatives. Cloud-based DDoS protection relies on companies offering cloud-based CDN and WAF solutions, including a DDoS mitigation layer. Traffic is redirected using DNS to the cloud provider, where high volume attacks can be easily handled. Since the origin server is not the one that responds to requests, it will be much harder for any DDoS attack to reach the targeted server. Cloud WAFs also protect against application attacks, both static and dynamic. The only attack vectors that cloud WAFs can't block are direct attacks.

Scrubbing Centers

The DDoS Scrubbing Center includes DDoS mitigation devices to mitigate large-scale network attacks. Most providers offer solutions that usually consist of several scrubbing centers distributed around the world. In the event of an attack, traffic will be diverted to the nearest center for analysis. Malicious traffic is removed and legitimate traffic is forwarded to the corporate network.

Scrubbing center protection can be leveraged in two ways: routing traffic to the center on demand in the event of an attack, or always routing traffic through the scrubbing center. The scrubbing center can thwart all types of networks and direct to origin attacks, both web and non-web (FTP, SMTP, etc.). However, it cannot provide protection against application-level threats. Implementing a scrubbing center solution is more complex than cloud WAF protection because it requires BGP traffic redirection and GRE tunnelling.

Public CSPs

Public cloud provider providers (CSPs), including AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, commonly offer DDoS safety as an `out-of-the-box` a part of their web website hosting packages. The CSP takes obligation for community safety and, as a customer, you get the inherent scalability of cloud facts services. On the other hand, CSPs tend to charge separately for application-level DDoS mitigation.

Essentially, the CSP provides a built-in cloud WAF solution in which the configuration and ongoing management are your responsibility. CSP-based protection is less mature and sophisticated than what cloud WAF vendors have to offer as a point solution. However, the convenience of having all DDoS protection under a single roof is also of significant value to many organizations.

Which Attacks Will Be Blocked?

The choices users make regarding DDoS mitigation options are highly dependent on priorities, technology, network size, and expectations.

CD Bytes!

DDoS protection services also have a bypass mode where the users can send the traffic to the origin without passing through the DDoS provider's network. Cloud Destinations as a trusted partner will help you in handling and mitigating cyber-attacks such as DDOS. Please reach out to info@clouddestinations.com to understand more on the portfolio.

Back Blogs