The growing scale of cyberattacks oblige today’s companies implementing efficient defenses, able to limit the devastating consequences of DNS attacks– such as Denial of Service (DOS) or Distributed Denial of Service (commonly known as DDoS).
DoOS and DDoS target almost anyone and may result in data theft or outages. As the DNS is one of hackers’ favourite targets, it is therefore important to provide your DNS with DDoS protection.
Understanding the difference between DoS and DDoS attacks
The aim of DoS and DDoS attacks is to make a website or a machine inaccessible to legitimate users and to deprive them of the service they expected. And unfortunately, anyone can be targeted by this type of attack (account holders, banks, employees, etc).
Hackers and cybercriminals often target large corporations, such as government and trade organisations, media companies or commerce organisations. The outages they create can result in the loss of time and money, or in confidential data theft- especially if the company provides its customers online services. Although financial profit is a common motive, in most instances, attackers only want to damage a brand reputation, or to cause sabotage.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are a more elaborate form of DoS. The main difference between the two is that DDoS is a high volume attack, in which the target is attacked from many locations simultaneously- which makes it even more difficult to detect and stop. DDoS attacks involve a great volume of infected computers (which generally form what is called a botnet)- a network of zombie computers that the attacker commands by spreading malware. You should look up for keywords such as “DNS DDoS protection” to know more about these attacks and how to defend yourself properly.
DNS: why DDos protection is essential for your network
Protecting your network is essential and you have to guarantee an optimal level of security for your business- especially if you provide online services. Without the DNS protocol, you simply cannot use the internet. Here are a few advice to provide you DNS with some DDoS protection:
- First and foremost, you should regularly keep an eye on your servers’ configurations and keep them up-to-date. It is worth noting that freeware is available to check your servers’ configurations.
- In addition to using the latest version of software versions, you have to make sure you install the suitable patches that would help you prevent cyber attacks;
- Make sure that your server can be replaced by other servers and that it is connected to other networks. It is effectively important to set up the best possible redundancy across your system.
- Finally, make sure you have “a plan”, so that the victim of an attack can continue his online operations with minimum downtime. This is particularly important in case of a major attack, and especially if your business offers online services to their customers and needs to have their Internet constantly working.
Fortunately, advanced solutions have been developed to protect network systems against these types of aggressive attacks. Enterprises can consider the possibility of implementing intrusion detection and prevention systems, as well as firewalls, which include DoS functions. It is worth noting that you can even request a free trial of these solutions. For instance on http://www.efficientip.com/products/dns-firewall/.
Yet, DDoS and DoS are still regarded as highly dangerous threats for organisations. Do not hesitate to type keywords on your search engine, such as “DNS DDoS protection” or “solutions against DDoS attacks”. You will find a lot of useful information about the best way to prevent your network from being infected.
