Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assaults are available many styles and sizes, as do the myths surrounding them. These myths can heart on motivations, DDoS assault vectors and strategies, mitigation methods, and extra. DDoS myths are additionally typically extra harmful than the assaults themselves as a result of the misconceptions can go away organizations weak to different varieties of cyberattacks, misguide mitigation methods, or trigger groups to overlook assaults altogether. Let’s take a look at 5 of the highest myths relating to DDoS assaults and safety and debunk them.
Fantasy 1: DDoS assaults are unusual, solely goal massive firms, and are carried out by subtle menace actors.
In actuality, DDoS assaults are quite common, concentrating on companies of every kind and sizes. In accordance with NETSCOUT’s ASERT analysis group, there have been greater than 15 million DDoS assaults worldwide in 2024. This stage of exercise reveals that the specter of DDoS is alive and properly, making defensive measures a should for corporations of all styles and sizes.
Though nation-states perform their very own subtle DDoS assaults, many are carried out by low-cost and even free DDoS-for-hire providers that make the most of world botnets or teams of compromised gadgets. Usually, those requesting DDoS-for-hire assaults will not be subtle hackers however are appearing on geopolitical occasions, going after corporations, people, or infrastructure that go towards their pursuits.
DDoS assaults don’t at all times goal company networks. They usually goal infrastructure or key providers, equivalent to energy grids, to profoundly influence the overall inhabitants.
Fantasy 2: DDoS assaults solely contain flooding networks with massive quantities of visitors.
Within the early days of DDoS, the overwhelming majority of assaults have been massive visitors floods. Nonetheless, DDoS assaults have advanced over time, changing into extra surgically focused and complicated. The media continues to report on the biggest, most stunning assaults which might be terabits per second in dimension, reinforcing this frequent false impression. Though these large-scale assaults are nonetheless harmful, most smaller assaults, beneath 1Gbps, are equally harmful, concentrating on utility layers such because the Area Identify System (DNS) and HTTP.
In 2024, ASERT famous a 43% improve in smaller application-layer assaults in contrast with 2023, displaying that these focused assaults are rising in reputation. It is because many DDoS safety providers supplied by web service suppliers (ISPs) and different cloud safety options search for massive volumetric assaults and disrespect the smaller assaults, that are handed on to the shopper. Until networks have some stage of DDoS safety in place, these smaller assaults are extra doubtless to achieve success and may trigger points for companies and their prospects.
Transmission Management Protocol (TCP) state-exhaustion assaults are one other frequent kind of smaller assault. They particularly goal stateful on-premises gadgets equivalent to firewalls, load balancers, digital personal community (VPN) gateways, and extra, and fill their state tables with bogus connections, blocking reliable customers from accessing areas of the community.
Fantasy 3: Subsequent-generation firewalls can cease DDoS assaults.
Subsequent-generation firewalls (NGFWs) are highly effective gadgets that may significantly enhance your total security stance. Nonetheless, their stateful design makes them weak to a number of varieties of DDoS assaults, particularly state-exhaustion assaults. Pairing NGFWs with a stateless DDoS mitigation resolution positioned in entrance of the firewall protects firewalls from state-exhaustion assaults.
Fantasy 4: Cloud-based DDoS safety alone is sufficient.
When a DDoS assault is bigger than your web pipe, the one technique to cease it’s with cloud-based DDoS safety. That stated, smaller assaults can slip previous these protections, necessitating extra defensive measures. Fashionable DDoS assaults leverage a number of assault vectors to bypass defenses. This implies they’ll pair a volumetric assault or state-exhaustion assault with an application-layer assault to focus on a number of areas of the community, making it tougher to detect and mitigate.
By deploying a hybrid method to DDoS protection, pairing cloud-based and on-premises inline DDoS safety options, organizations can higher shield towards agile, multivector DDoS onslaughts, maximizing uptime and availability.
Fantasy 5: DDoS safety doesn’t require the usage of AI/ML.
Many imagine that leveraging synthetic intelligence (AI) or machine studying (ML) isn’t vital in defending towards DDoS assaults. That might not be farther from the reality. First, attackers are utilizing AI/ML to multiply assault volumes, improve sophistication, and keep away from detection. Because of this defensive measures should suppose the identical approach, leveraging the visitors anomaly detection capabilities of AI/ML to search out abnormalities in visitors patterns that signify DDoS threats.
AI/ML can take the type of curated menace intelligence feeds that routinely block identified, lively DDoS threats in actual time. With this menace intelligence continually up to date, the newest threats are not any match for AI/ML-powered DDoS defenses. AI/ML may also automate real-time countermeasure changes to defend towards multivector assaults.
DDoS assaults and safety
Myths haven’t any place in defending your community’s most vital digital belongings. Don’t fall sufferer to those frequent myths. Devoted DDoS safety that defends towards dynamic multivector DDoS assaults is the one true technique to guarantee most uptime within the trendy DDoS panorama.
Study extra about NETSCOUT’s Arbor DDoS safety resolution.
