DDoS

DDOS attacks are no joke these days. Making use of Botnets, the DDOS attacks have evolved into a powerful new threat which can have even the mightiest of servers crashing and burning, causing damage to your business interms of servers, money and reputation. This is why there is a strong need to get yourself a nice DDOS mitigation service before you are overrun by an uncontrollable flow of packets that your system cannot manage. The following things should be considered when selecting a service:

·         Their experience in the field.

·         Procedures for attack overpowering the agreed upon bandwidth.

·         DDOS Mitigation Response time and no false positives.

·         A solid attack report.

These points can be further elaborated as follows; there are many providers entering the market offering to protect you from the DDOS threats. It is very important to choose the one having quite a sum of experience. Such a provider will not only deploy the latest techniques to deal with the DDOS attacks but will also have well-experienced people standing by and monitoring for any DDOS attacks.

Then there is the matter of what the provider will do in case an attack exceeds your set bandwidth package. For example, you agreed to get a package that will keep your website active in case of any DDOS attack below 50 Gbps. Then what is the protocol if this limit is breached? Many providers will react differently to such situations. Some may instantly set a null-route to bring your website down to stop the attacker from dropping any payload while other may wait some time and then proceed with this step. This is why the Service Level Agreement should be thoroughly considered.

Every vendor has carefully crafted out DDOS mitigation strategy. They have systems in place to monitor the traffic and check for any malicious activity. When an attack is detected, the malicious traffic will be rerouted or blocked while the regular users will be granted access. In this case, the provider that starts mitigating the attack from the earliest will do you good. If the attack is, however, more complicated and cannot be mitigated immediately then at least your website should remain operational for the customers. This is because some more advanced DDOS attacks mimic human behaviors. The defense in place must be able to distinguish between the two by blocking the real attack rather than the users.

And last but not least, it is imperative to get a detailed attack report. This is also different for different providers. Some may allow you to monitor the traffic in real time while others may give a report after the attack is mitigated giving you the details of the type of attack. Some may only give a report upon request. The report analysis is also very important. Such data will let you know what kind how threat you are facing. Such reports also help in generating timelines and attack points which may give you a pattern of attacks allowing you to take further precautions.

With a plethora of security threats arising with development in technology, it is becoming very crucial for organizations to use firewalls for their applications and websites. So are you using an application firewall in order to stay ahead of the threats? A firewall is very important for all users and organizations online. Not only can it restrict unauthorized to your applications, but it also provides with security against a great deal of threats from a great deal of sources. Firewalls can easily restrict any external access to the computing infrastructure of your organization.

How it secures?

Firewalls execute a plethora of security policies which are integrated all together in order provide security. In essence, a web application firewall limits the access of people to your application on your network. While you can get secured from people from outside the network, the question is that is there a way to protect your infrastructure from within the firewall? To be honest, there is. There are countless software applications available online and they are from mostly trusted vendors which can be used in order to withstand attacks from inside and outside.

In order to provide with utmost care to your IT infrastructure, it is very important to know whether your firewall is up to the task or not. Here is a criteria which can help you decide upon the effectiveness and efficiency of your firewall.

Performance

The main function of the firewall is to provide with a screening procedure in order to process the incoming data packets which then sends requests in order to gain access to applications inside the firewall. The firewall forwards the requests to the security engines or terminals. These engines then assess the quality of the packets and then decide whether the packets can pass the set security policies. The set security engines search for sickness signatures and then evaluate the packet in comparison to regulations. See if your system can provide with regulations stick enough to process the sending requests.

Price against Performance

Just like any other purchase you make, the web application firewall you purchase should provide with the functionalities matching the price. Like most of the times, the performance should provide with enough value which surpasses the monetary value for the purchase, or at least live up to it. You must try out and see whether your application firewall is even capable of providing a way around threats which might otherwise cost you money to repair. You should not constantly be worried because of the hindering threats. If you are, then your firewall is not up to the job.

So go ahead and find the best possible firewall solution for your office infrastructure, the one which doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg, all while providing you state of the art security. Also make sure to conduct a thorough research in order to find the best possible solution with the biggest possible functionality set. So how do you protect your network, with something obsolete? Definitely not.

What do you call the process of distributing requests received from a user among a cluster of computers/servers in order to speed up the process and reduce the turnaround time? That’s right, Load Balancing. There are a lot of different tools and techniques which can be employed to balance load amongst the cluster of servers that you have. That said, both software and hardware can be employed in order to accomplish the desired results. While some make use of software to improve on the performance, others make use of hardware and the rest employ a combination of both. That said, the desired result is usually achieved by employing a cluster of servers which can be located along with the others or vice versa.

In order to pull ahead of the competition, many organizations deem balancing the load, a worthy tool in their arsenal. Many organizations make use of computers in order to leverage their edges in order to stay with the trend. Companies who mainly conduct business through their online presence are a great candidate for these load balancing implementation, thanks to it they’ll be able to provide with excellent customer service to all their users and clients. Companies which need to network a great deal of computer in order to cater to their customers usually use these techniques in order to ensure all computers work properly and get the required amount of horse power to perform all the intended functions in just manner. Load Balancing ensures that when disaster strikes, your organization can continue the operations like nothing had happened.

Types

There are a lot of different ways, one can go about implementing Load Balancing. One of the most commonly practiced methods is the Global Server. What this technique does is that it distributes the incoming requests to the servers located in a particular geographic place. Commonly used by organizations with global presence, this technique satisfies their customers in order to provide with superb experience all over the globe. Using the global server technique makes sure that the amount of requests received is justly distributed amongst the cluster on a way which is easy to manage and makes sure that the customer experience doesn’t falter at all. Also that it retrieves the right information form the servers when required.

Another technique which is commonly practiced is called Persistence. What this technique does is that it assigns every request to a new server in a round robin sort of fashion i.e. time-based allocation of resources. This request is then assigned to the server for the foreseeable future. Doing so ensures that not a single server is overloaded with all the requests and that very specific sort of client, for instance, clients from a single geographical location or want a specific type of service. This technique ensures that the client requests are distributed evenly throughout the available servers. These assignments are typically monitored by making use of the IP address of the user making it as a unique identification code for the customer.

Many service providers suffer greatly from DDOS attacks and their threats. As these threats continue to torment the online business community, it is important to discuss and come up with strategies to defend the networks against such attacks. Some older techniques for DDOS protection are SYN-Proxy, SYN-Cookies, challenges, redirects and null routing (also known as Black Hole routing). Many of these DDOS protection techniques have been present since the DDOS attacks started. Among these techniques black hole routing makes an IP-traffic route which virtually ends up nowhere. This Null-routing option is available on all routers present today and there is almost no performance impact in dropping all traffic to a specific point.

It is no surprise that null-routing is frequent tool used by many organizations having no other techniques of DDOS protection. When an attack is in place, the target is not necessary the only one affected. Others in the same network infrastructure may all get there services blocked. This is known as second-hand DDOS which effects non-intended victims causing collateral damage. If victims have no DDOS protection available then they will call their Internet service provider to do something about it. The ISP’s most obvious response is to inject a null-route with the victims IP address. This has good chances of blocking off all the malicious traffic and preventing the victim’s customers becoming collateral.

This technique for protection against DDOS is very much discouraged and is mostly the last resort in most cases. This method in fact lets the attacker have his way because it not only blocks malicious traffic but also blocks all good traffic as well.  For business who depend very much on making themselves available to the customers it is not a viable option. AS most attackers have their source IP spoofed, it is impossible to null route it and block the malicious traffic only. One big issue is that most hosting providers are relying only on this black hole routing as their only defense against DDOS attacks. So when every one of their customer is under a DDOS attack, they will implement a null-route into their network infrastructure which will result in not only blocking the traffic going to the victim but all to many other customers. This causes many clients to go offline in the vicinity of the attack.

Analyzing the black hole routing technique, it is very evident from the above discussion, that it will do more harm than good. It is a very basic approach to solving this DDOS crises which only focuses on cutting off all the traffic going to the victim, bring the website down altogether. In the present time it is possible to take advantage of the emerging technologies to get real-time DDOS protection. If used, these defenses can effectively stop the malicious traffic from even enter the IPS’s network, mitigating the attack even before it reaches the hosting infrastructure and damaging it. It is therefore advisable to deploy these new defenses if you want to keep your customers.

With the current progress in technology, internet is being used more and more. While many people are using the internet, the ones having most to lose are the business people or entrepreneurs earning online. Many businesses or services if not online are at least advertised online. This makes them venerable to the attacks such as DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack. Such attacks are increasing by the day and can happen to any site or server anywhere unless some precautions are taken.  The DDOS attack is one of the most common because it was relative easier to do. All it takes is the right tools and you get devastating effects. Even if someone has no know-how of performing such attacks then there are many websites offering services for as low as $50.

If you ask why anyone would want to attack you, for one it is very easy to take candy from a baby. What it means is that if you have made no effort to protect your website or server, then it is very easy for amateur hackers to get by and the world is full of profession hackers as well. Professional hackers are hired in order to settle a grudge with a company. Competitors can also have a lot to gain if they drop your market share by inflicting harm upon your commercial web ability.

The aim of the DDOS attack is to render the website or online service useless. It can also effect any device connected to the internet such as a laptop or printer. The Distributed term in DDOS means that the attack is generated via different internet connections and devices. This is usually achieved by Bots which can use hundreds and thousands of sources to flood one location with simple requests. The overflow of the requests causes the system to use its maximum resources and still not manage all the requests. So the system either crashes or misbehaves. There are many types of DDOS attacks. Some are volume based which cause UDP and ICMP floods, while others are specific protocol based which include SYN floods, Ping of Death, fragmented packet attacks and more. Application layer attacks are also common which include Zero-day DDos attacks. Over time DDOS attacks are becoming more and more sophisticated and harder to combat. It is hence very imperative that one is aware of their threat and takes measures to stop them.

Quick identification and the correct response can repel a DDOS attack. The identification is possible if the incoming traffic can be categorized so that malicious traffic is detected. Once this is done it usually takes time to find its source and block it. So it is advised to have an infrastructure that can absorb the attack for the time being. This is done by routing the malicious traffic to a dummy server or servers that take the blow. Sometimes rerouting the malicious may not be possible if the attack is specifically targeted but can be mitigated by the help of tools.