A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack involves the disruption of web services via a sudden surge of non-human web traffic. When this occurs, legitimate users are prevented from gaining access to the targeted website. High profile examples include an attack on Amazon in 2020 and on GitHub in 2018.
How Do DDoS Attacks Work?
A high volume of seemingly legitimate requests would be sent to the server. The fraudulent requests are simultaneously sent from multiple sources controlled by the attacker. The server then becomes overwhelmed, resulting in a crash.
A DDoS attack is similar to a storefront receiving a sudden high influx of customers, leading to some being denied entry. For websites that serve as their own virtual storefronts, it is crucial for legitimate customers to have access.
Types of DDoS Attack
Application Layer Attacks make use of resource-intensive web requests to drain the server’s computing power or bandwidth.
Volumetric Attacks use a large amount of meaningless web traffic to overload external resources serving the website. The aim is to saturate the website’s external bandwidth limit.
Protocol Attacks target the vulnerabilities of network and transport layers of the OSI Model. These attacks consume network resources such as bandwidth or router capacity.
How Polaris Safeguards Your Website
DDoS attacks can last from several minutes to days. The resulting potential revenue loss is especially detrimental for businesses providing online services.
DDoS Mitigation: Polaris can block a variety of volumetric attacks using a global pool of internet resources that a host-based or network-based WAF does not offer.
Automatic Application Scanning: Polaris scans your applications and servers to discover known vulnerabilities.
