Cloud DDoS: Avoid Downtime Without Sacrificing Network Performance

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) remains a top cyberthreat for global organizations. According to a recent study, DDoS attacks increased by 109% in 2022 — a trend that shows no sign of reversing.

The good news is businesses have more options for combating DDoS attacks. And one of the best options is cloud DDoS protection, which takes advantage of the cloud’s inherent distributed nature to protect servers from malicious traffic.

Read ahead to learn:

· A brief overview of DDoS attacks and how they work

· Common strategies for preventing DDoS attacks

· Why cloud DDoS is a great option

· Zenlayer’s approach to cloud DDoS

What is a DDoS attack?

A DDoS attack occurs when a distributed network of machines sends an overwhelming amount of malicious data to a target server or network. This type of attack aims to prevent legitimate end users from reaching a server while the event is taking place.

The malicious connected machines are usually either purpose-built servers dedicated to the attacking (if the attacker has financial resources) or, more commonly, a botnet which is a network of bots. Botnets are comprised of compromised machines, including home devices like PCs, laptops, phones, and IoT devices.

DDoS attacks can last from minutes to days or weeks, creating extensive and costly service disruptions. In fact, the average SME now spends around $120,000 per DDoS attack.

How do you protect against a DDoS attack?

Despite the clear and present threat of DDoS attacks, many organizations are still at risk because they lack a solid security strategy. With this in mind, the most important thing your organization can do is recognize DDoS as a legitimate operational threat, and from a plan to protect your assets.

There are several ways to protect against DDoS attacks:

· Blackholing: Discard all incoming traffic to a targeted server. This approach will prevent threat actors from overloading your network. However, you will lose both legitimate and malicious content — making this a risky strategy.

· Stockpiling bandwidth: Have more bandwidth than attackers can muster. In other words, if you’re being attacked by 5 Gbps of malicious traffic while your users need 1 Gbps of legitimate traffic, and you have 10 Gbps available to you, then you’re in the clear.

Unfortunately, this strategy isn’t practical either. For example, even giants like Netflix have been taken down by targeted DDoS attacks in the past. DDoS attacks are also increasing in size.

· Scrubbing traffic: Another option is to “scrub” incoming data in a third-party scrubbing center. This involves using an algorithm to analyze all data before it reaches the targeted server. Then, the malicious traffic is discarded and only the legitimate traffic is sent on to its destination.

This has many advantages. First and foremost, it shields servers from attacks and prevents end users from experiencing disruptions. However, you’re still limited by how much bandwidth the scrubbing center offers. has. And in some cases, attacks can still be so large they can overwhelm scrubbers.

Figure 1 Traffic from attackers and legitimate users is directed to a scrubbing center, which “cleans” the traffic and only allows legitimate user traffic to pass through. In this example, the scrubbing center can handle 50 Gbps at once.

Scrubbing can also potentially increase latency, when centers are located far away from source locations. Routing data over long distances can impact performance, and lead to poor digital experiences for users.

Why cloud DDoS is the best option

Since botnets leverage global networks, businesses also need global networks to defend against attacks. And this is where Cloud DDoS protection comes into play.

With cloud DDoS, you set up multiple global mitigation centers and scrub incoming traffic near the source instead of the destination. With cloud DDoS, incoming traffic can’t get near your server.

Unlike a botnet, you don’t need to deploy thousands of endpoints. All you need is a few local concentrated, high-bandwidth nodes to process scrubbing. Otherwise, your traffic gets held up and starts to lag. The trick is to find the right balance to stop attacks and get legitimate traffic on its way without a noticeable delay.

Cloud DDoS leads to the following benefits:

· Rapid scalability

· Lower operating costs

· Optimal network performance with minimal congestion

· Maximum DDoS protection

Figure 2 In this example, the attacking traffic is cleaned by the nearest scrubbing center. Even though there is 68 Gbps of traffic headed for the client, only the 8 Gbps of legitimate traffic arrive.

Cloud DDoS protection: The Zenlayer way

Zenlayer enables low-latency DDoS protection through a global network of over 30 scrubbing centers. This solution leverages a proprietary system for sorting data with refined rules, weighing factors such as IP location, traffic patterns, and frequency, among others to detect incoming attacks.

Best of all, Zenlayer Cloud DDoS Protection is completely seamless and takes place in the background — meaning customers won’t even know when an attack happens. Zenlayer also utilizes this service to protect its own infrastructure, including the company’s private backbone network. And it’s available to all customers through Zenlayer’s suite of edge computing products.

To learn more or set up a free consultation, contact Zenlayer today.