Page 34 - Cyber Warnings

14 Unique Ways to Protect Yourself from DDoS Attacks

by Todd Reagor, CEO of Rivalhost

If your website goes down due to an overload of website traffic, you’re probably a victim of the
notorious distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. DDoS attacks have become a nightmare
for companies with an active online presence. From BBC to Twitter and from Donald Trump’s
website to Netflix, 2016 saw some of the most unprecedented cyber attacks in the history of the
internet.

DDoS attacks have become a nightmare for companies with an active online presence. From
BBC to Twitter and from Donald Trump’s website to Netflix, 2016 saw some of the most
unprecedented cyber attacks in the history of the internet.

In the ever-changing world of high-tech gadgets and rising popularity of Internet of Things,
DDoS attacks have increased 2.5 times over the last 3 years, and are believed to become
increasingly frequent in the coming years.

Furthermore, according to a report by Cisco in 2016, the average size of DDoS is accelerating
and approaching 1Gbps, which is enough to bring large business offline. Globally, the DDoS
attacks grew by 25% in 2015 and are likely to increase by 260% by 2020.

From monetary to brand value, DDoS attacks drastically affect every part of the business. The
cost a business can incur from a DDoS attack range up to $20,000 and for airline Virgin Blue
lost $20 million in an IT outage that lasted for 11 days in 2010.

Today, businesses need to tighten their seat belts to work and land safely in the highly
advanced internet world. Here are 15 unique ways to protect yourself from DDoS attacks.

1. Create an Action Plan in Advance

Why wait for a DDoS attack to ruin your business? Intelligence is in responding to the potential
attacks before they happen.

Focus on creating a system that absorbs a potential DDoS attack. Though creating an action
plan in advance is not 100% foolproof way of DDoS protection, it does help in mitigating the risk
to a great extent.

An action plan might consist of the following items:

• Use sensors that send an alert whenever the website is down.

34 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – March 2017 Edition
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