Page 35 - Cyber Warnings

• In case of any malicious activity, dump the logs quickly.
• Consider contacting your ISP to understand about the free and paid DDoS protection
plans.
• Confirm the DNS TTL (time-to-live) for systems that can be attacked in the future.
• Document your IT infrastructure and create a network topology diagram with an asset
inventory.
• Purchase DDoS protection products to mitigate the monetary loss due to the attacks.

An action plan comes in handy when your website is under attack because it would reduce the
extent of damage caused by the hackers.

2. Monitor Traffic Levels

A DDoS attack brings an unprecedented amount of traffic to your server, which spikes the traffic
beyond your imagination.

In fact, an ideal time for any hacker to strike is when your website is likely to witness huge
amount of traffic such as Thanksgiving or Christmas. They mix with the genuine traffic and
overloads the server with unprecedented traffic, which eventually crashes the server.

Therefore, the best way to quickly notice a DDoS attack is to look out for abnormal traffic
increase to your website. If you expect 500 visitors per 10 minutes, an influx of 4000 visitors per
minute should trigger an alert.

Staying alert, monitoring the traffic and setting threshold limits when traffic goes beyond a
certain level will help you in DDoS protection.

3. Pay Attention to Connected Devices

Internet of things is the latest buzz and a growing topic of conversation both in the workplace
and outside. From wearables to retail, healthcare to agriculture, IoT is making an impact in
every sector, but even this burgeoning technology is not spared by attackers.

Hackers find their way through these connected devices to disrupt the services of a brand.

Paying special attention of the connected devices will help you wade through the DDoS attack.
For stronger DDoS protection, change the passwords of the devices regularly, switch off the
devices when not in use and verify every device before connecting it.

Until the procession begins, focus on mitigating the threats to protect the connected device and
your server.

35 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – March 2017 Edition
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