Battling DDoS attacks

A DDoS attack is an attempt to interfere with normal operation of a website through excessive load on web-hosting provider's servers. Such load is usually generated by means of multiple simultaneous requests of the website's URL from a large number of different IP addresses, which does not allow the server administrator to block a single IP address or a limited range (group) of addresses to eliminate the threat. A DDoS attack is almost always the result of deliberate actions taken by competitors or by third parties specially involved for its implementation.

Signs of a DDoS attack

If an attack has begun, your visitors may experience problems loading the website pages in their browsers or not be able to open them at all. Very often web-hosting providers temporarily suspend the attacked account to reduce the load on their servers and to ensure normal operation of other hosted websites.

What should I do if I am attacked?

If uninterrupted operation of the website is crucial for your business and it has been attacked, it is advisable to order DDoS filtering services provided by third-party companies specialized in that area.

A DDoS filter is a software-hardware complex which removes "trash" traffic generated by DDoS attackers and forwards the remaining "clean" web traffic to the web-hosting provider's servers, thus reducing the load and keeping your website available for regular visitors. Due to relatively high cost of such services, it is advisable to enable DDoS filtering only when an actual threat exists instead of having it running uninterruptedly.