Unfortunately, DDoS attacks are extremely common these days. As a result, website owners really need to have some form of protection in place when it comes to DDoS attacks and their aftermath. Fortunately, for those with dedicated servers, there are all kinds of options available when it comes to DDoS protection plans. By having a better understanding of how DDoS attacks occur and how DDoS protection plans work, you can make better-informed decisions regarding what’s right for your site’s security.
What Is a DDoS Attack?
A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is one that works by overwhelming or bombarding a site’s servers with large amounts of “fake” traffic. Most servers are simply not able to keep up with the larger amount of traffic, and as they attempt to sort through it and filter out any “bad” traffic, the server itself becomes easily overwhelmed. This, in turn, can slow down page load times and affect the user experience for legitimate site visitors. In some of the worst cases, a DDoS attack can even cause a server to go down entirely. This can pose an issue for any website, but this is perhaps especially true for sites that rely on ad revenue or even e-commerce sites that could lose profits as a result of DDoS attack downtime.
DDoS Protection and How It Works
Fortunately, DDoS protection is available through many hosting companies these days, and it’s a great way to reduce your chances of falling victim to a DDoS attack. Most hosting companies offer a wide range of protection options to suit your specific needs, since DDoS attacks can come in a wide range of sizes. For example, a smaller site could opt for a smaller level of protection for attacks up to 10 gigabytes per second.
However, since there have been instances where larger sites and organizations have been hit by much larger DDoS attacks (some up to 600 gigabytes per second), some sites will need a greater level of protection. Hosting companies vary greatly in the level of protection they offer, so sites will need to consider a number of factors when determining how much protection they need.
The way in which DDoS protection works is relatively simple. Rather than being overwhelmed by a large amount of traffic, a site with DDoS protection will be able to filter through traffic and seamlessly stop “bad” traffic from coming in.At the same time legitimate site users can continue without a delay or lag. This results in a greater user experience for visitors and protects the site from downtime or other issues. The purpose of DDoS protection is to allow a site to continue running smoothly, even when an attempted attack is occurring.
Overall, DDoS attacks are a threat that all site owners and admins need to take seriously. They can wreak a great deal of havoc on a site without the proper level of protection. Fortunately, hosting companies offer DDoS protection that can greatly reduce the chances of a site’s server falling victim to such an attack. All site admins should consider adding at least some degree of DDoS protection to their hosting package for added peace of mind.
