The threat
A DDoS attack uses many compromised devices to send traffic to a target until it can no longer serve legitimate users. Attacks are cheap to launch and can be large.
Three broad types
- Volumetric: floods of UDP or amplified traffic that saturate links.
- Protocol: attacks such as SYN floods that exhaust state on firewalls and servers.
- Application-layer: large numbers of seemingly legitimate requests to web or API endpoints.
Who is targeted
Gaming platforms, financial services, government portals, media and ISPs themselves are frequent targets. Attacks often coincide with high-visibility events.
Preparation checklist
- Know your normal traffic baselines.
- Have detection that alerts within minutes.
- Agree mitigation options with your providers in advance.
- Keep contact lists and runbooks current.
- Practise.
Peer1IX DDoS Protection
Combining flow-based detection with blackholing, flowspec and scrubbing at the edge of our fabric, it stops attacks before they saturate your links.
See current attack trends with our country insights tool.
