How to stop a ddos attack and save your business from possible threats

How to stop a ddos attack
In today’s sophisticated business environment, an organization should be equipped with global defense strategy against DDoS attacks. Distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) is a cyber crime where the attacker makes online services unavailable by driving traffic to the target website from different sources. This attack cannot be stopped by blocking a single IP address. It’s estimated that more than 2000 attacks are carried out world-wide on daily basis. It’s really crucial to know how to stop a ddos attack nowadays.

How to stop a DDoS attack?

Research has also shown that a 1/3 of downtime incidents are as a result of DDoS attacks. When the attack hits your network, immediate solution is required to prevent severe damage. If you don’t know how to stop a DDoS attack, your critical system data could be lost. Let me walk you through the most effective ways of stopping distributed denial of service attack.

  • Network defense

The best way to prevent unwanted traffic coming to your network is by getting it away from the network. The secret is to direct that traffic elsewhere. This will ensure your network only responds to legitimate requests. It’s important that you deploy a team of experts to help you gain insight on the activities in your network. The most popular approach is to have a router that samples information about a particular packet. To plan your response immediately, you should be aware of the service expectations from network users.

  • Keep an eye on your performance metrics

The most important component of internet connection is bandwidth. Large packets use large bandwidth while small packets use small bandwidth. The challenge that most organizations face, is setting the amount of packets a computer system can handle within a second. First, you should avoid handling small packets of data at high rate. This will ensure your attacker does not stress out your network quickly. If you are new in business and you have no idea how to stop a DDoS attack, make sure your web server has more bandwidth than you possibly need. This will help you accommodate any unexpected surges in your web traffic.

It’s important to note that even if you over provision the bandwidth by 500%, the DDoS attack cannot be stopped completely. It only gives a few minutes to respond to the attack before your network is compromised. Be sure your network provider gives performance numbers that match your network size.

  • Use of network perimeter

If you run your own web server, you can always mitigate the effect of the attack in the first few minutes. This may sound a bit technical if you are not fully informed how to stop a DDoS attack. For instance, you can add filters in your router to drop packets from the sources of the attack. Alternatively, you can prevent the server from being overwhelmed by limiting the packets in your router. To completely defend your network perimeter, you should drop all malformed packages. These measures are not 100% effective when the DDoS attack is too large.

  • Have a DDoS plan in place with your host provider or ISP

Immediately you discover your network is under distributed denial of service attack, call your internet service provider. Based on the magnitude of the attack, your ISP provider might have noted it. If your server is located in a hosting centre, you stand a higher chance of withstanding the attack. To effectively mitigate the attacks, you should ensure your web server is located with a hosting provider. The hosting company will `null route’ your traffic when the attack is large enough. All the packets directed to your traffic will be dropped before arriving in your website.

  • Use off-premise cloud based solutions

Off-premise solutions are either cloud-based or ISP provided. Cloud-based solutions provide additional filtering while ISP only offers a network of protection. Since both solutions are deployed outside the network, a business owner may not know how to stop a DDoS attack. Off-premise solutions are deployed on service or demand basis. Although they may require some investment in additional security personnel, they are effective in securing your network.

  • Consult a DDoS specialist

When your network is faced with severe DDoS attacks, the chance of staying online diminishes. To be on the safe side, you should contact a DDoS specialist. He or she will have the necessary infrastructure to mitigate the problem. Since the services are not free, you should be willing to dig deeper in your pockets to save your business. It’s recommended that you form partnerships with organizations that handle such fatal attacks.

  • Review your security measures

This should be an ongoing process. Remember, your attacker will always try something different.

If you don’t know how to stop a DDoS attack, you can easily lose your business. It’s recommended that you take preventive measures in advance for DDoS protection for your business in the event of a malicious attempt. Remember, every moment counts.