Distributed Denial of Service attacks are cyber-attacks that disrupts the functioning of server or network. It works by overwhelming the network with Internet Traffic. 

 

“DDoS attacks achieve effectiveness by utilizing multiple compromised computer systems as sources of attack traffic. Exploited machines can include computers and other networked resources such as IoT devices. From a high level, a DDoS attack is like an unexpected traffic jam clogging up the highway, preventing regular traffic from arriving at its destination.” (CloudFlare).  

 

According to ZDNet, these types of cyber-attacks are not only becoming more frequent, but they are becoming more effective. 

 

“DDoS attacks have become more effective during the past year due to the added reliance on online services. Disruption to services that people are relying on in both their professional and personal lives has the potential to have a significant impact.” (ZDNet). 

 

This is likely due to an increase in multi-vector attacks that use many different strategies simultaneously to achieve their goal in the attack. 

 

“Cyber criminals are increasingly leveraging multi-vector DDoS attacks that amplify attacks by using many different avenues to direct traffic towards the victim, meaning that if traffic from one angle is disrupted or shut down, the others will continue to flood the network of the target. In many cases, the attackers will specifically tailor these to exploit vulnerabilities of the target.” (ZDNet). “In 2020, the largest one of these attacks used 26 vectors. During the first half of 2021, there have been a number of attacks using between 27 and 31 different vectors, plus an attacker can switch between them to make the attack harder to disrupt.” 

 

"The tooling behind these attacks has matured over the years," Hardik Modi, Netscout area vice president of engineering, threat and mitigation products told ZDNet.    

 

Businesses should be able to defend themselves against DDoS attacks by implementing proper precautions.  

 

“However, in the majority of cases it's possible to defend against DDoS attacks by implementing the industry's best current practices to maintain availability of services in the face of an incident. These practices include setting specific network access policies as well as regularly testing DDoS defenses to confirm they can protect the network from attacks.” (ZDNet). 

 

In order to implement proper precautions, its necessary for businesses to be able to recognize these kinds of attacks so they can combat them effectively. CloudFlare has some signs of a DDoS attack that businesses should look out for.  

 

“The most obvious symptom of a DDoS attack is a site or service suddenly becoming slow or unavailable. But since a number of causes — such a legitimate spike in traffic — can create similar performance issues, further investigation is usually required.”  (CloudFlare). 

 

Some other signs include: 

  • Suspicious amounts of Traffic originating from a single source 
  • An unexplained surge of requests for a single page or endpoint 
  • Odd traffic spike patterns or surges, such as a spike every ten minutes 

(CloudFlare). 

 

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Sources: 

“What Is a Distributed Denial of Service Attack| Cloudflare.” CloudFlare, 2021, www.cloudflare.com/learning/ddos/what-is-a-ddos-attack. 

Palmer, Danny. “DDoS Attacks Are Becoming More Prolific and More Powerful, Warn Cybersecurity Researchers.” ZDNet, 22 Sept. 2021, www.zdnet.com/article/ddos-attacks-are-becoming-more-prolific-and-more-powerful-warn-cybersecurity-researchers/?ftag=TRE-03-10aaa6b&bhid=%7B%24external_id%7D&mid=%7B%24MESSAGE_ID%7D&cid=%7B%24contact_id%7D&eh=%7B%24CF_emailHash%7D.