Alexis Kestler
Introduction
In today‘s digital landscape, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks pose a severe threat to the availability and security of websites and web applications. A successful DDoS attack can cause costly downtime, loss of customer trust, and major financial damage.
As online usage and connectivity have exploded, DDoS attacks have likewise increased in frequency, size and sophistication. Even small, targeted attacks can cripple a website or grind a web application to a halt. For hackers and cyber criminals, DDoS has become an easy way to inflict major disruption.
The key question facing many organizations is no longer if they will be hit by a DDoS strike, but when. Having a robust DDoS mitigation solution in place is now crucial for maintaining business continuity.
This comprehensive guide examines the current DDoS threat landscape and provides profiles of 13 top cloud-based DDoS protection services ideal for small to large enterprises.
Overview of DDoS Attacks
A DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack seeks to overwhelm a website or online service with fake traffic from multiple sources. By flooding the target with junk requests, attackers aim to exhaust server resources and bandwidth – causing slowdowns and preventing legitimate users from accessing the site.
DDoS assaults typically leverage botnets – networks of infected computers and devices that can be remotely controlled to produce enormous volumes of requests. Advanced botnets containing millions of nodes can generate huge floods of malicious traffic to deluge targets.
Attackers have also grown more innovative in constructing DDoS botnets using Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices. Unsecured IoT gadgets like DVRs, webcams and smart appliances are increasingly co-opted into botnets to bolster firepower.
Common DDoS attack types include:
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Volumetric attacks – Where the goal is to saturate the network layer with floods of UDP, ICMP and spoofed TCP packets to overwhelm infrastructure and bandwidth. Tactics used include UDP floods, ICMP floods, DNS amplification, SSDP reflection and more.
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Protocol attacks – Designed to drain server resources by exploiting vulnerabilities in network protocols. Protocol flaw manipulation includes SYN floods, ACK floods, fragmented packet attacks and other methods.
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Application layer attacks – Target web application resources and infrastructure by using seemingly legitimate HTTP GET and POST requests. When scaled to high volumes, these "low and slow" attacks can bring down web applications and crash servers.
Based on recent research, the average DDoS attack size has grown dramatically in recent years. Major assaults exceeding 1 Tbps are increasingly frequent, using a wide mix of payloads. In Q1 2022, the largest reported DDoS attack peaked at 3.38 Tbps.
For attackers, DDoS has become easier and more affordable to deploy on a massive scale. The explosive growth in vulnerable IoT devices has further fed this trend. As attacks proliferate, having DDoS protection is now an essential component of risk management and business continuity planning.
Detecting and Mitigating DDoS Attacks
The first step in fighting DDoS is implementing systems to monitor web traffic and detect anomalies that signal an attack‘s onset. By analyzing traffic signatures and patterns, a pending assault can potentially be spotted in advance.
Once an attack is verified, mitigation steps can begin – geared at filtering and discarding the malicious traffic flooding the network and systems. The goal is to isolate and thin out the "bad" traffic, while allowing legitimate user requests to still be handled.
For small websites and simple network configurations, it may be feasible to manually identify attacking hosts and block their IP addresses at the firewall level during an incident response.
However, this approach has severe limitations when faced with botnet-driven DDoS events, involving random, widely scattered sources. Manual IP address blocking cannot keep pace with floods at gigabit levels of traffic.
The most effective approach is to utilize intelligent DDoS mitigation systems that can:
- Instantly identify traffic anomalies and patterns indicating an emerging attack
- Seamlessly divert traffic flows away from vulnerable infrastructure when an attack starts
- Inspect and filter attack traffic in real-time without impacting legitimate requests
- Provide detailed traffic analyses and visualizations for ongoing monitoring
Top-tier DDoS protection solutions are engineered to handle this entire mitigation chain quickly and accurately, nullifying even large volume events.
Why Cloud-Based DDoS Protection Services?
Historically, on-premise DDoS mitigation appliances provided an option for large enterprises. However these hardware solutions have major capacity constraints in blocking modern DDoS botnet attacks.
Cloud-based DDoS protection services offer cutting-edge capabilities for detecting sophisticated, ever-evolving attack methodologies. Leveraging vast networks and pooled traffic intelligence across client sites, they can gather data to enhance defenses globally.
Chief advantages of cloud-based DDoS protection include:
Effective Against Largest Attacks – Cloud-based networks have the bandwidth and mitigation capacity to absorb flood events exceeding 1 Tbps, with minimal customer impact.
Timely Threat Intelligence – Cloud providers can quickly collate attack data from across many client sites to identify emerging threats, and update countermeasures network-wide.
Flexibility – Cloud-based services offer flexible plans to match needs and budgets. Protection can be activated instantly when required.
Easy Deployment – Getting started with cloud-based DDoS defense typically requires only simple DNS routing adjustments, with no hardware to install.
High Availability – Leading solutions offer extensive scrubbing center redundancy, high network availability and reduced latency.
For website owners, hosting providers, CDNs and enterprises needing scalable defense against outsized DDoS strikes, cloud-based protection is now the go-to solution.
Top 13 Cloud DDoS Mitigation Services Compared
Akamai Kona DDoS Defender
Akamai operates one of the world‘s most pervasive content delivery networks, giving it enormous DDoS protection muscle. Kona Defender combines Akamai‘s 175Tbps distributed platform with centralized traffic analysis to counter large attacks.
Key features:
- Real-time attack data visualization
- Various deployment modes: DNS redirection, proxy chaining, etc.
- Dedicated Security Operations Center (SOC)
- Broad DDoS coverage, including UDP/ICMP floods, SSL overload, etc.
- Significant network scale – blocks attacks up to 650Gbps
AWS Shield
Amazon Web Services offers AWS Shield in two versions – Standard (free for AWS customers) and Advanced. The latter provides expanded DDoS protections and 24/7 support.
Key features:
- Automatic attack detection and mitigation
- DRT support and proactive advisory
- Protection against more sophisticated, multi-vector attacks
- Integration with AWS WAF for expanded L7 safeguards
- Price is based on usage; starts at $3,000/month
Cloudflare Magic Transit
Cloudflare leverages its large global network spanning 200+ cities to provide DDoS filtering at scale. Magic Transit absorbs volumetric attacks close to their source.
Key features:
- Filters average 70 billion reqs/day for enhanced threat data
- Mitigation capacity – 15Tbps currently
- Fast propagation of new threat signatures across network
- Real-time traffic analytics, reporting, alerts
- Price starts ~$500/month based on 95th percentile traffic
Fastly DDoS Protection and Mitigation
Fastly‘s privacy-centered approach focuses on detecting and filtering DDoS attacks before they reach customer origin infrastructure. Fastly has 200+ global POPs.
Key features:
- Real-time logging and visibility into all HTTP/S traffic
- Pattern recognition and traffic analysis spots anomalies
- Anycast routing across POPS absorbs attacks near source
- Over 277 Tbps of capacity for massive flood mitigation
- Always-on or standalone options, with 24/7 support
G-Core DDoS Protection
G-Core offers 1.2Tbps+ of total traffic scrubbing capacity across its platforms in 70+ locations. Its hybrid defense combines predictive analytics with real-time attack mitigation.
Key features:
- Leverages smart traffic baselining to detect anomalies
- Three scrubbing options: Content Delivery Network, Smart Traffic and Virtual Traffic
- G-DDOS Precision option automatically diverts traffic during attacks
- Fast setup (under 5 minutes) and detailed traffic analytics
Imperva DDoS Protection Services
Imperva uses ML detection, global scrubbing centers (3.25Tbps capacity), and reputation database with up-to-date threat intelligence to guard against DDoS campaigns.
Key features:
- Broad protection against high volume and application layer DDoS variants
- Quick time-to-mitigate and low false positive rates
- FlexProtect feature customizes mitigation thresholds
- Robust attack visualizations and forensics analyses
- SLAs guaranteed up to 100% network uptime
Link11
Link11 operates a cluster of cloud-based global scrubbing centers to filter malicious attack traffic automatically using smart network analytics.
Key features:
- Pre-configured thresholds enable auto-mitigation
- Attack detection in under 60 seconds, mitigation in under 10 seconds
- 100% uptime SLA guaranteed
- Specialized SOC provides custom reporting, alerting, support
- Significant network capacity – currently blocking up to 5 Tbps
Netscout Arbor
Netscout offers maximal protection via on-premise, hybrid and cloud-based options leveraging 130+ Tbps of total capacity. Traffic flow analysis aids in surgical filtering of DDoS floods.
Key features:
- Spectrum model provides CPE-based, cloud-based or hybrid deployment
- Spectrum On-Demand service scales-up rapidly for short term needs
- Peak traffic capacity over 2.7 Tbps; total capacity 130+ Tbps
- Attack analysis identifies vectors, targets and sources
- SLAs guarantee 100% uptime, 15 minutes mitigation speed
Radware Cloud DDoS Protection Service
Radware uses a global network of cloud scrubbing centers and threat intelligence from over 4,000 network sensors to defend against full spectrum of DDoS attacks.
Key features:
- Automatic attack detection and synchronization
- Over 4 Tbps total capacity handles high-volume attacks
- Always-on, hybrid and emergency services available
- Centralized reporting provides visibility into attack traffic
- SLAs guarantee 15 minutes time-to-mitigate
Stackpath DDoS Protection
Stackpath leverages its sizable global network and multiple scrubbing centers to soak up and negate DDoS floods aimed at customer networks and infrastructure.
Key features:
- Anycast routing across 50+ POPS ensures attacks are mitigated early
- Total network capacity over 65 Tbps
- Virtual scrubbing clusters provide flexibility based on traffic spikes
- Constant platform upgrades driven by a 125+ member engineering team
- Monthly charges based on 95th percentile traffic peak
Sucuri DDoS Protection
Sucuri‘s cloud proxy-based DDoS defense is an add-on option for customers using its SaaS-based WAF security platform. The DDoS module helps guard infrastructure against transactional threats.
Key features:
- DDoS protection inherits strengths of Sucuri‘s core web application security platform
- Cloud proxy architecture absorbs high-volume attacks aimed at origin infrastructure
- Integrated with website performance monitoring stack
- Provides TCP/UDP flooding protection, Layer 7 DoS protection
- Cost add-on is ~20% over standard Sucuri pricing tiers
Verisign DDoS Protection
Verisign leverages strong network capacity and dedicated scrubbing centers to provide DDoS mitigation that integrates with its popular domain registry solutions.
Key features:
- Four scrubbing centers with 5.5 Tbps total capacity
- Protection against DNS, SSDP, CharGen,app-layer attacks
- Web-based portal provides attack diagnosis/forensics info
- Traffic redirection techniques protect DNS infrastructure
- Annual pre-paid credits allow piecemeal mitigation purchases
Final Thoughts
With DDoS threats growing in scale and sophistication, having strong defenses in place represents table stakes for organizations wanting to avoid costly outages. By understanding the DDoS landscape and evaluating protection needs, website owners can identify and deploy layered safeguards suitable for their risk profile.
Cloud-based DDoS protection services allow leveraging massive network capacity, real-time threat intelligence and advanced traffic analysis to negate large attacks automatically. As DDoS events proliferate in our increasingly digitized economy, purpose-built cloud scrubbing solutions provide an appealing option for mitigating this menace.
