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Mohana Vamsi
Mohana Vamsi

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Protecting Against Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Attacks

Unlike some attacks that exploit vulnerabilities in a server, network or website, DDoS attack floods a server, network or website with traffic thus making it inaccessible to legitimate users. This kind of attack could be performed with the use of botnets which are a number of devices that have been compromised by an attacker.

Example: An example of a more recent DDoS attack that was executed by a malware known as Mirai was in October of 2016 targeting Dyn, another DNS provider that disrupted social media such as Twitter, Netflix, and Reddit. The botnet activated thousands of IoT gadgets including cameras and routers to overwhelm Dyn’s servers with traffic.

To mitigate DDoS attacks:

In traffic distribution, the use of Content Delivery Network (CDN) ought to be implemented.
Use firewalls or intrusion prevention systems in order to monitor for suspicious traffic.
Outsource using DDoS protection services Centers such as Cloudflare and Akamai.
Certainly, for business organizations, the analysis of the current traffic flow in a network allows solutions to be made according to issues that are founded before they become a problem. In the case of individuals, security can be minimised by ensuring that the IoT devices come with modified passwords and firmware in order to avoid getting compromised by botnets.

Tip: Accompanying the increase in the scale and complexity of DDoS attacks, final preventive planning is critical. A prepared system can handle attack traffic, channel or reject it in a way that will not affect the, genuine users.

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