What is DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service)?
Distributed denial of service (DDOS) is a type of cyberattack where multiple attackers send malicious traffic to a single IP (Internet protocol) address or domain. This prevents the website or service from functioning normally for the intended users. DDOS attacks can shut down a website by blocking its server ports from being accessed, or they can bombard the site with so much traffic that it becomes unusable. For a more detailed explanation, check out our guide on ddos protected hosting.
Why Are Hosting Companies Adding DDoS Protection?
As a server or web host, you should always strive to provide a safe and secure platform for your customers. Malicious traffic—such as that which comes from a DDoS attack—is dangerous for your site’s security. A DDoS attack usually comes from outside the network, so that makes it even more suspicious. Unidentified or unsolicited traffic that arrives in large quantities is often a sign that something is amiss. This could be due to a DDoS attack or it could be someone trying to bring you down. In either case, you should add some sort of DDoS protection to your server.
How Do I Add DDoS Protection To My Server?
Adding DDoS protection to your server is fairly easy. There are several companies that provide this service as a part of their plan, or you can buy it separately. Your hosting company will guide you through the process, or you can do it yourself. In most cases, you will be presented with a few server IP addresses that you can block. If you decide to purchase this service, make sure that you purchase your domain name from a reputable company who handles their DNS (Domain Name System) correctly. The last thing you want to do is purchase a domain from a suspicious party and have it resolve to a malicious IP address. If you want to learn more, ask your hosting company about their DDOS protection policy.
What If I Forget To Add DDoS Protection And My Server Gets Hacked?
If you forget to add DDoS protection and your server is hacked, there is not much you can do to prevent further attacks other than contacting the company who administers your DNS. If you purchase and install SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates on your server to secure financial information, that is something. Otherwise, you will have to wait for the hackers to release the source code for your platform, find and repair all the security flaws, and reimplement all the features that were previously available.
If you decide to implement your own DDoS protection, there are several methods that you can use. For a detailed explanation, check out our guide on building your own DDoS protection system. You can use a free tool such as OWASP ZAP to simulate DDoS attacks and find weak points in your network that could potentially be exploited by hackers. You can use a service like Cloudflare to protect your site from DDoS attacks. Or if you prefer to use an entirely free tool, you can use RIPE, the Réseaux IP Européens de Transport network, to prevent your server from being overloaded by DDOS attacks. The bottom line is that no matter which method you choose, a DDoS attack is never going to be easy to prevent or stop.
Are There Any Alternatives To DDoSing A Server?
While it is always good to protect your server from online threats, there are times when a DDoS attack might not be the best way to go about it. If you are looking to bring down a particular website or service, the DDoS method can be one of the simpler—and possibly the most effective—ways of achieving that goal. In most cases, the website or service owner will be the one getting hit by the DDoS attack, and it is usually not a good idea to aim a DDoS attack at a business that you do not own.
If you prefer to use a more conventional method to take down a website, you can use a service like Honeypot, which allows you to set up a fake server that looks exactly like the original one and which is completely unprotected. When a hacker or a group of hackers attempt to DDoS your original server, they will be redirected to the honeypot server. As a result, you will have full control over whether or not the website or service owner gets hurt by the DDoS attack. And in some cases, a well-placed honeypot might even prevent a DDoS attack from ever occurring.
What About UDP Flooding?
In the past, we have discussed how to prevent DDoS attacks by blocking suspicious IP addresses or ports. But there is another less-known method that can be used to bring down a website or service, and that is UDP flooding. Just like with a regular DDoS attack, UDP flooding attacks can come from outside the network and can be used to take a site or service offline. However, instead of using IP addresses or ports to target a website or service, UDP flooding uses the infamous UDP (User Datagram Protocol) to attack a web server directly.
UDP is a protocol that was originally designed to allow two computers on a local network to exchange messages with each other quickly and efficiently. Since UDP is a connectionless protocol, all a hacker has to do to send you a UDP packet is to load it into the destination address field in a browser. Essentially, UDP allows unsolicited or unwanted traffic to be sent to your server without having to first establish a secure connection. This means that there is absolutely no way for you to prevent or stop a UDP flood attack.
If your goal is to bring down a website or service, using a UDP flood attack is one of the simplest—and most effective—ways of doing so. Since there is no encryption involved, all the hacker has to do is load a malicious payload into the request and send it to the site’s IP address. If the site owner does not change the port number—which is the most common scenario—then all the traffic will be sent to their web server on UDP port 53, the standard UDP port used by DNS servers. In most cases, a UDP flood attack will overload a website’s or service’s connection to the public and prevent anyone from accessing the content.
The main problem with UDP is that it is a general-purpose protocol and not just for sending text-based messages or binary files. This means that not only can UDP be used to bring down a website or service, it can be used to send any type of data or file to any other IP address on the internet. So if you are looking to bring down a website or service for copyright infringement or fraud, you will have to prove that the the data being sent is worth suing for. Otherwise, the site or service owner may simply claim that the data was lost in transit and that they are unable to do anything about it. In most countries, that would be considered legal victory enough.
UDP Packet Header Analysis
To figure out the nature of a UDP packet, all you need to do is look at its header. The header contains several fields, and each of these fields stores a specific type of information. Depending on which fields you look at, you will get a different piece of information about the packet. For example, if you look at the source IP address, you will get the IP address of the computer or device that originated the data. If you look at the destination IP address, you will get the IP address of the computer or device that is going to receive the data. So in most cases, you will get the IP address of the computer or device that is performing the action (sending or receiving the data). A good UDP packet header should look like this:
As we can see from the header above, the source and destination IP addresses are not the only pieces of information stored in the UDP header. Several other fields are also used to store different types of data. If you want to learn more, check out our guide on UDP packet header analysis.
Is There Anything I Should Avoid While Bringing Down A Website Or Service?
While it is always good to protect your server from online attacks, there are several things that you should avoid while using any type of hacking or DDOS technique. If you want to take down a website or service, using the following tactics is a good idea: