DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Service, is one of the most common types of cyberattacks. It utilizes many infected systems to disrupt the normal traffic to a targeted website by bombarding it with fake requests.
As of 2024, top-rated hosting providers offer multiple layers of DDoS protection, enhanced security features, tailored customer support, regular backups, and flexible site migration options.
Traffic Management
Hosting providers employ deep packet inspection to detect DDoS patents in their networks.
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If such are detected, they activate content delivery networks and traffic scrubbing services to divert the flow of malicious requests to the main server.
Geo-blocking is another traffic management strategy hosting providers use to block DDoS attacks.
They just make their servers unreachable to IP addresses from certain parts of the world, like Indonesia. Statistics show that this country has been the largest source of DDoS attacks in the third quarter of 2024.
Third-Party DDoS Defense
Developing a genuine DDoS defense system from scratch can be time-consuming and expensive.
For this reason, many mid-tier web hosting providers rely on third-party solutions such as Radware DefensePro and Imperva DDoS Protection to shield their clients’ websites from cyberattacks.
These highly specialized solutions scrutinize incoming traffic for even the slightest signs of a DDoS attack.
Upon identifying one, they route the unwanted traffic through various scrubbing centers that filter out the malicious packets.
DDoS Protection through Traffic Scaling
Many hosting providers have integrated automatic scaling tools to protect their infrastructure from overflowing malicious requests.
When a DDoS attack is detected, the tool automatically scales the server’s resources to handle the excessive load and prevent website downtimes.
AI-based Traffic Analysis
Hosting providers use the latest achievements in artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) to provide their customers with affordable DDoS detection. These systems can predict DDoS attacks based on past traffic patterns.
While static DDoS protection systems rely on preset traffic patterns, their AI-based counterparts can learn from the latest available data and quickly adapt to evolving cyberattack strategies.
Multi-layered DDoS Protection
Hosting providers have adopted a multi-layered approach to DDoS protection to defend their clients against attacks at different levels of their open system interconnection models.
L3 and L4 DDoS attacks
For instance, L3 and L4 DDoS attacks are averted through rate-limiting, IP blacklisting, and blackholing.
Blackholing redirects traffic from a particular range of IP addresses to a null route and funnels it out of the network. The problem is that legitimate queries also go down the drain along with
malicious ones.
Rate limiting is a DDoS defense that controls the amount of traffic to the server and prevents unwanted surges.
However, rate limiting does not work well when the DDoS attack comes from numerous IP addresses.
L7 DDoS attacks
L7, or app-level attacks, are often disguised as ordinary server requests. For this reason, an application layer attack can cause more harm to an already compromised web hosting environment with less total bandwidth.
L7 DDoS attacks are mitigated through bot detection techniques, challenge-response tests, and regular updates of the WAF rules.
An AWS WAF rule tells the server how to inspect HTTP(S) web requests and how to respond to requests that do not match the inspection criteria.
Providers offer Cost-effective DDoS Protection Solutions
As of 2024, all of the top hosting providers offer DDoS protection with their standard hosting packages.
Out of Patch, or OOP, is one of the most cost-effective DDoS defenses. Instead of deploying a DDoS device next to each edge router, service providers deploy fewer devices in a centralized network hub.
Migrating from an inline to an OOP server architecture can optimized a provider’s DDoS protection strategy and prove more cost-effective in the long run.
Final thoughts
Hosting providers implement DDoS protection into their standard hosting plans to ensure uninterrupted service availability for their customers.
DDoS integration strategies involve AI-based detection, network-level filtering, and scalable traffic management. Smaller hosting providers rely on third-party DDoS mitigation solutions to create a sturdy defense against modern cybercriminals.
