Understanding DDoS Attacks and How They Work

Years ago, DDoS attacks were seen as small, inconvenient, minor annoyances, but things have progressed, and DDoS attacks are often a big deal. The ever-present threat of cyberattacks remains significant in today’s online businesses and fast internet. Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks are among the most prominent and damaging types.

During a DDoS attack, cybercriminals will flood or overbear a network with false traffic that causes it to become unoperational or unable to function as it normally would. This article sheds light on their impact and preparation you can take against them.

What is a DDoS Attack?

A Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack is a criminal attempt to disrupt the regular functioning of a website, network, or online service by sending it an overwhelming amount of illegitimate or fake traffic. The discerning sign of a DDoS Attack is using multiple compromised devices, often forming what is known as a botnet to try and carry out the assault. 

What Happens When You Get a DDoS Attack?

When a victim of a DDoS Attack gets struck, their info structure gets bombarded and overwhelmed with a flood attack of massive volume of incoming network traffic. The rapid influx and volume of fake traffic will congest the targeted network, bandwidth, server resources, or other critical components, making them unable to complete any request by legitimate users. As a devastating result, this targeted service becomes slow, unresponsive, or overall inaccessible to any legitimate traffic, which can cause inconvenience, financial loss or losses, and potential reputable damage. 

How Does a DDoS Attack Work?

DDoS attacks reside in a network of compromised devices, commonly called a botnet, to flood the desired target with overwhelming network traffic. This botnet's primary goal is to compromise desktops, servers, loT devices, laptops, and even smartphones, controlled remotely by the attacker. This attacker will commonly employ malware (such as trojan horses or worms) to infect and take over or control a device, often without the owner’s knowledge. 

Once the botnet is deployed, the DDoS attacker organizes a coordinated assault by instructing any compromised device to send a massive amount of attack traffic directly to the target simultaneously. This sudden flood of requests bombards the target’s resources, making it extremely difficult for legitimate users to get any real request processed–all while disrupting the normal function of the target’s system. 

Are DDoS Attacks Illegal?

Yes, in most jurisdictions, DDoS attacks are considered illegal. Being involved in or conducting a DDoS Attack is considered a federal criminal offense under various computer crime and hacking laws. Unauthorized access to computer systems, the disruption of services, and intentional damage to networks are all typically covered under these laws. Offenders of DDoS attacks can face severe legal consequences such as significant fines–or even imprisonment for up to ten years.

What is the difference between a DoS Attack and a DDoS Attack?

While the end goal of a DoS attack and a DDoS attack is essentially the same, to disrupt services, they differ in terms of the number of attacking sources involved. DoS uses one source to disrupt traffic, while DDoS uses multiple.

A DoS attack typically originates from a single source meant to either a) overwhelm the target with a mass flood of attack traffic or b) exploit vulnerabilities. Essentially this attack's main goal is to shut down the target server or machine to make it inaccessible to the users. 

DDoS attacks come from multiple sources and form a botnet while coordinating the attack to amplify the impact. This makes the devices infected by a DDoS Attack infected by malware and allows the attacker to become in control of your devices remotely. Since the nature of a DDoS is more distributed, it makes it more difficult to mitigate as resolving these attacks requires identifying and neutralizing multiple attacking sources across multiple networks. 

Different types of DDoS attacks:

DDoS attacks come in many shapes and forms, each with a different goal and targeting different aspects of an organization’s infrastructure. Here are some common types: 

1. Volumetric Attacks: these attacks flood the target with a massive traffic volume, overwhelming the bandwidth and network resources. 
2. TCP/IP Protocol Attacks: Exploiting vulnerabilities in the TCP/IP protocol stack, these attacks consume server resources and disrupt connectivity. 
3. Application Layer Attacks: Targeting specific applications or services, these attacks aim to exhaust server resources (such as CPU or memory), rendering the application or service inaccessible. 
4. Fragmentation Attacks: Fragmentation exploits weaknesses in network protocols by sending fragmented packets, making it challenging for the target system to reassemble and process them efficiently. 
5. DNS Amplification Attacks: This type of attack leverages open DNS servers to flood the target with an amplified traffic volume, overwhelming the network infrastructure. 

What makes it difficult to prevent a DDoS Attack?

There are a few reasons why preventing DDoS attacks is quite difficult. While it is not impossible, it can be very hard for these reasons: 

• Scale and Complexity: DDoS attacks can involve many compromised devices, making it difficult to differentiate real, legitimate traffic from malicious traffic. 
• IP Spoofing: Online attackers often disguise their IP by “Spoofing” their IP addresses; this makes it incredibly challenging to trace and block all the attacking sources completely. 
• Evolving Attack Techniques: You should be constantly updated on the latest attack vectors and prevention techniques to stop them. 
• Botnets: Attackers frequently harness vast networks of compromised devices (also known as botnets) to launch DDoS attacks, making it extremely difficult to identify and block individual attacking sources. 

Can a DDoS Attack be Avoided?

While it is very difficult to avoid a DDoS Attack, proactive DDoS protection measures can help mitigate the risk of being attacked significantly. 

• Scalable Infrastructure: Building a robust and scalable infrastructure capable of handling sudden spikes in traffic can help to absorb the impact of DDoS attacks. 
• Traffic Monitoring and Anomaly Detection: Implementing traffic monitoring tools and anomaly detection systems that can identify and respond to unusual traffic patterns, enable timely mitigation, and potentially prevent DDoS attacks. 
• Redundancy and Load Balancing: Employing redundant systems and load-balancing techniques distributes traffic across multiple servers, minimizing the impact of an attack on any single component.

Best Defenses Against DDoS Attacks

Organizations should implement a multi-layered defense strategy to best defend against DDoS attacks. 

1. Traffic Filtering: Use traffic filtering solutions, such as firewalls or intrusion prevention systems (IPS), to identify and block malicious traffic based on predefined rules and signatures. 
2. Rate Limiting: Implement rate-limiting mechanisms to restrict the volume of incoming traffic, ensuring that the network and server resources are not overwhelmed. 
3. Content Delivery Network (CDN): Use a CDN service to distribute content geographically, reduce the attack surface, and minimize the impact of volumetric attacks.
4. DDoS Mitigation Services: Partnering with a DDoS Mitigation Service Provider who can offer expertise in detecting and mitigating a DDoS attack, which will provide an extra layer of protection.

How can I Mitigate DDoS Attacks?

In the unfortunate event that a DDoS attack should happen, take fast action along these lines:

• Incident Response Plan: Before any risks appear, have a comprehensive incident response plan, with clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and escalation procedures to help ensure a rapid and effective response. 
• Traffic Scrubbing: Employing traffic scrubbing techniques, both in-house and with the assistance of DDoS mitigation service providers, can help to filter out the malicious and false traffic and restore normal operations. 
• Communication and Transparency: Maintain open communication with stakeholders, including customers and partners, to keep them informed about the situation at hand and the steps that are being taken to mitigate the attack. 
• Post-Incident Analysis: Conduct a thorough analysis of the attack after its resolution to identify the vulnerabilities, reinforce security measures, and enhance future incident response capabilities. 

How Can RiskRecon Help Me?

RiskRecon by Mastercard applies powerful machine learning and adaptive defense that detect new and existing DDoS threats with measures which are easy to implement and rapidly deliver results. We provide the adequate capacity and functionality to consume and block network- and/or application-based attacks.

Virtually all mitigation in our TPCs™ is carried out in hardware, which makes it suitable for dealing with low-and-slow and volumetric attacks at several hundred gigabits per second. The advanced fingerprint function allows us to identify every device behind a request, and subsequently block individual devices behind a single source IP mounting an application-based DDoS attack. We extract hundreds of parameters from connecting clients and their web browsers to safely identify individual attackers. Let us help you today!