How to DDoS: The Inner Workings of Distributed Denial of Service Attacks

As DDoS attacks become larger and more expensive every year, organizations are at a risk of crippling downtime and expenses. Prevention is essential, so implementing sophisticated security tools must be a priority for security teams. Below, we take a closer look at what DDoS attacks are, the most common attack types, and popular methods of attack.

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Che cos'è un attacco DDoS?

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are coordinated, large influxes of traffic that create downtime and traffic jamming at the target website, application, or server. They typically originate from large botnets, which are networks of compromised devices.

Il botnets send large numbers of requests to the target
This is using up resources or bandwidth and preventing legitimate traffic from accessing normal services.

Often, a DDoS attack is instigated for financial reasons.

An attacker may attempt to extort a payment from a victim in exchange for stopping the attack, or a business’s competitors may want to see its website shut down.

The 3 Most Common Types of DDoS Attacks

There are a few major types of DDoS attacks, and each of them works differently:

Volumetric attacks: It’s overwhelming the target with large amounts of traffic. It will eventually grind to a halt as traffic bottlenecks or the server fails due to high bandwidth consumption. This creates a poor user experience and long periods of downtime.
Application layer attacks: An application layer DDoS attack evades detection by using bots that behave like normal traffic. The volume of the attack tends to be smaller, and the bots focus more on taking up resources rather than bandwidth.
Network layer attacks: This type of attack focuses on creating a large number of open connections to the target. Because the server or application can’t complete a request and close the connection, resources are tied up in the attackers’ connections. This prevents new connections from being made with legitimate users’ devices. SYN floods operate this way.

Whatever method an attacker chooses, the ultimate result is a nonfunctional website or application.

When customers can’t access information or services, they’re likely to take their business elsewhere, which can have a big impact on a company’s revenue and reputation.

DDoS Attack Tools and Methods

There are a few common tools and methods to accomplish a DDoS attack. These include:

Compromised IoT devices: Many DDoS attacks take advantage of the growing number of IoT devices, which are often poorly secured. Once these devices are recruited into a botnet, they become part of a large-scale, high-volume attack.
Adaptive traffic patterns: As bots become sophisticated, they are better able to mimic typical traffic patterns. The most modern bots are built with AI to increase adaptability. This helps them slip past firewalls and DDoS attack detection tools.
Business logic exploitation: DDoS attacks in the past focused on high volumes of traffic overwhelming the target. But attackers are now turning to subtle attack styles as security has improved. By exploiting business logic, a DDoS attack can send requests that jam up application executions without requiring high numbers of bots.
Slow-rate attack: This method relies on very slow connections to take up a target’s bandwidth rather than large numbers of bots. Slow-rate tools can help an attacker set up this type of attack, which is very difficult to mitigate because it does not trigger alerts for most security tools.
Spoofing: To make detection even more difficult, attackers will use IP spoofing to camouflage the bot IP addresses. The goal is to make it look like traffic is coming from either trusted or variable sources. If successful, this makes it appear to anti-DDoS tools that the traffic is legitimate.

If organizations want to minimize their risk of attacks, they should implement up-to-date security solutions that account for the steps involved in a successful DDoS attack.

How to DDoS: 3 Steps Attackers Take

Most DDoS attacks follow these steps:

Build a botnet: Regardless of the type of DDoS attack, most attackers use a botnet. To form a botnet, the attacker infiltrates vulnerable devices and plants malware that enables control of that device. IoT devices are a common target because their security is often poor.
Send requests: Once an attacker has a large network of bots, he directs the bots to send requests to targets. Some botnets are composed of millions of bots, but this strategy often attracts the attention of DDoS protection tools, so some attackers favor smaller, cheaper botnets. Large botnets send large amounts of requests, and the smaller botnets often rely on slower connections to the target or more resource-intensive requests.
Sustain requests: To get the most out of a DDoS attack, the high number of requests and overwhelming traffic need to continue over time. Once enough requests are received and connections are open, traffic on the target’s website or application slows down enough to cause downtime and access problems for legitimate users.

Also, some DDoS attackers pay for DDoS services to attack targets.

Although many sophisticated attacks come from people with expertise, attacks can come from anyone who can access these services. As a result, attacks sometimes originate from unhappy employees, disgruntled customers, or anyone else with a grievance against the organization.

Whether the attacker has built the DDoS attack or is paying for the use of a botnet, organizations need to stay ahead of the latest DDoS developments.

Soluzioni di protezione DDoS

Each type of DDoS attack will require different prevention and mitigation tools.

Network Layer Protection

Network layer protection solutions protect Layer 3 access points and vulnerabilities with rate-limiting protocols, scrubbing centers, and traffic filtering solutions.

These tools limit bandwidth use to prevent successful attacks.

Application Layer Protection

Application Layer Protection prevents attacks on Layer 7. Tools best suited to this include:

SSL/TLS inspection
Identity challenges
Web application firewalls

Firewalls, especially those with AI-influenced detection capabilities, prevent bots from reaching the network while rate limiting restricts the number of requests one source can make.

Cloud-Based DDoS Protection

Cloud-based DDoS protection services are important for volumetric attacks.

When very high amounts of traffic come in, it’s useful to be able to redirect traffic so that the influx can’t overwhelm the target. Cloud scrubbing centers can also help by filtering unwanted bot traffic.

Mitiga gli attacchi DDoS con Quantum DDoS Protector

Ultimately, the best prevention for a DDoS attack is a comprehensive solution that addresses all three types of attacks. Check Point’s Quantum DDoS protection solution prevents each type, with an extensive suite of tools and protection strategies.

Although some DDoS attacks may slip past prevention solutions, Quantum offers protection through mitigation tools as well. This ensures that downtime is limited even in the event of a successful attack, which prevents substantial revenue losses and reputation damage. To learn more about Quantum, request a demo today.