Bad bots are computer programs designed to carry out harmful actions such as stealing website content, account hacking, and DDoS attacks. The damaging outcome has been exposed through multiple news outlets. These reports have shed some light on how bad bots are being used to spread misinformation on social media, commit identity theft, and steal bank accounts.
Our main goal with this article is to equip users and website/application owners like you with valuable insights on bad bots: how to comprehend the different types of bad bots, and how to prevent bad bot traffic.
What are the types of bad bots?
Let’s dive into the most common types of malicious bots out there. Familiarizing yourself with these threats is crucial to understanding how they can potentially harm your website or even target you as an internet user. Below is a list we’ve created for you to discover the different types of bad bots that you need to watch out for.
1. DDoS bot
DDoS bots are used by cybercriminals that seek to disrupt a website or online service by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources. To execute this attack effectively, botnets come into play. Botnets are networks of computers and internet of things (IoT) devices that have been infected with malware and are under the control of a hacker or malicious actor.
How do DDoS botnets work?
Malicious actors can manipulate bots remotely, corrupting a large number of internet-connected devices after infecting them with malware. What makes this especially alarming is that the owner of the compromised device may not be aware that their device has been infected.
In every botnet, there are four key components:
- Bot master. This is the attacker who creates and manages the bot code and controls the entire botnet.
- Bot code. Also known as a bot controller, this is a malicious program that is designed to infect vulnerable devices and turn them into bots.
- Bots (also called “zombies”). These are the compromised devices that are infected with the bot code and can be controlled remotely by the bot master.
- Command and control (C&C) server. This is the central server to which all the bots in the botnet connect to communicate with each other and receive commands from the bot master. The C&C server allows the bot master to send instructions to the bots, such as launching a DDoS attack.
Let’s take a look at the typical setup of a botnet and how these four participants work together.
In the diagram, the bot master distributes a bot code to victim computers. This can be done through email attachments, malicious links, software downloads, or exploiting vulnerabilities. When the victim’s computer becomes infected (i.e., becomes a bot), it joins the botnet and connects to the C&C server. The attacker sends instructions to the bot through the C&C server and synchronizes its actions with other bots.
Key takeaways about a DDoS botnet
- The bot master is responsible for setting up the C&C mechanism and providing instructions to the bots.
- Botnets rely on C&C mechanisms to coordinate the actions of infected machines.
- The effectiveness of DDoS attacks often depends on the structure of the attacker’s architecture, the number of bots in the botnet controlled with a C&C mechanism.
DDoS bots can use variety of techniques to carry out their attacks, including the following:
| DDoS Bot Attack Type | Description | Example & Impact |
| SYN floods | SYN is an acronym for “synchronize”. In SYN floods, a botnet sends a large number of SYN packets to the target server. The attack floods the server with connection requests that do not receive confirmation, leaving many open TCP connections that consume the server’s resources, mainly crowding out legitimate traffic and making it impossible to open new legitimate connections. This makes the website or application unavailable to legitimate users. | An e-commerce website, which heavily depends on its online platform for generating sales, falls victim to a SYN flood attack during the busy holiday shopping season. Attackers use fake IP addresses to carry out these attacks, making them difficult to detect and counter. Since the holiday season sees a high volume of online traffic, the website owner may overlook the flood of requests and consider it normal, causing the website to become unavailable to genuine customers. The outcome is a loss of sales and harm to the website’s reputation. |
| UDP floods | UDP, short for “User Datagram Protocol,” is a protocol designed for communication between network devices. It is a lightweight protocol commonly used to transmit data over the internet. However, in certain cases, UDP can be used maliciously to launch a type of attack that involves flooding a target server or network with a high volume of UDP packets. This can cause congestion, resulting in a slow down or complete website/application unavailability. | An online game experiences a major disruption due to a DDoS attack that involves a UDP flood. The attackers send a large number of UDP packets to the servers, overwhelming their ability to process incoming data. This causes players or users of the service to experience connectivity issues, lags, and delays, and some are even disconnected from the service entirely. |
| DNS amplification | DNS amplification is an attack that exploits the unique features of DNS services on the internet. The attacker sends a request to a public DNS server, directing its response to the targeted server. This floods the victim server with voluminous responses from public DNS servers, overwhelming the server and making it difficult to identify the attacker. | A DNS amplification attack is carried out, causing the website or app to become inundated with traffic, which makes it difficult for legitimate users to access it. |
| HTTP floods | An HTTP flood is a form of DDoS attack that sends a large volume of seemingly legitimate HTTP requests to a web server or application with the goal of overwhelming it and rendering it unavailable to legitimate users. This type of attack is usually carried out using a botnet of compromised computers. Unlike other DDoS attacks, HTTP floods do not rely on spoofing or reflection techniques and can be more difficult to detect and block. | An attacker wants to take down a website to disrupt its operations. The attacker launches an HTTP flood attack by using a botnet to send a massive number of HTTP GET or POST requests. The requests appear to be legitimate, so the server tries to process each one, but the sheer volume of requests overwhelms the server’s resources, causing the website or service to become unavailable to real users. |
2. Account takeover bot
This is a type of bad bot that cybercriminals use to take over users’ online accounts. These bots are designed to automate the process of guessing or cracking login credentials, such as usernames and passwords. Once the bad bot takes over the account, it can carry out harmful activities like stealing confidential information, spamming, or being used in phishing campaigns.
How does an account takeover bot work?
- A cybercriminal typically obtains a list of stolen usernames and passwords from data breaches, phishing attacks, or the dark web.
- The attacker uses account takeover bots to automatically test login credentials on different websites—for instance, e-commerce or social media sites—persisting until they successfully gain access to an account. With the use of bots, even strong passwords can be cracked in no time, putting personal information at risk.
- Once the bot has taken over the account, the attacker can carry out different malicious activities, such as making unauthorized purchases or posting spam messages.
Before we discuss different types of account takeover bots, let’s take a look at a few examples of incidents involving account takeovers:
- Twitter hack: In July 2020, several high-profile Twitter accounts were hacked, including those of Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates. The attackers used an account takeover scheme to promote a bitcoin scam to the followers of these accounts.
- Equifax data breach: In 2017, Equifax, one of the largest credit reporting agencies, suffered a data breach that exposed the personal information of millions of consumers. The breach was the result of an account takeover bot, where the attackers gained access to Equifax’s systems by exploiting a vulnerability in its website software.
- Uber breach: In 2016, the personal information of 57 million users and drivers of the ride-sharing service Uber was exposed due to a data breach caused by an account takeover. The attackers were able to gain access to an Uber engineer’s account, which contained access keys to Uber’s Amazon Web Services account.
What are the types of account takeover bots?
Now that you’ve gained an understanding of the impact of this bad bot, let’s explore common types of account takeover bots, including their descriptions, examples, and the potential consequences they can cause.
| Type of Account Takeover (ATO) Bot | Description | Example & Impact |
| Credential stuffing bot | These malicious bots use lists of usernames and passwords from data breaches and try to log in to different websites and gain access to user accounts. They take advantage of users who reuse their passwords across multiple sites. | A person uses the same login information for multiple online services. A hacker gains access to one of the victim’s accounts, and then uses the same login information to break into other sensitive accounts, like a bank account or email, resulting in difficulty in recovering accounts, identity theft, and financial loss. |
| Brute-force attack bot | These malicious bots use automated tools to try various combinations of usernames and passwords until they find the correct combination that grants access to a user’s account. | A user has a weak and easily guessable password that is vulnerable to brute-force attacks. An attacker gains access to an account and steals sensitive information, or uses the account for other malicious activities that leads to invasion of privacy, leak of sensitive information, and financial loss. |
| Phishing bot | These malicious bots use phishing emails or messages to dupe users into sharing their login credentials. The attacker sends a malicious link, which, once clicked on, directs the user to a counterfeit website that resembles a genuine one. As a result, the user may unintentionally provide their login credentials, which are then captured by the attacker. | A user falls for a phishing scam. An attacker gains access to their accounts and steals sensitive information or uses the accounts for other malicious purposes. The phishing attacks result in significant financial business losses, data breaches, and damage to reputation. |
Among the various types of account takeover bots, the most widespread is credential stuffing. According to a report from Google, 52% of individuals use the same passwords for multiple accounts. This means that if a cybercriminal gains access to one of those accounts, they may also be able to access other sensitive accounts, including those containing credit card information, bank account details, and social media profiles.
3. Web content scraping bot
These malicious bots use web content scraping techniques to extract data and content from websites, including copying information from the HTML code and databases of the victim’s server. However, it’s worth noting that legitimate uses of web content scraping do exist, such as search engine bots like Googlebot, which help to index websites and improve search results. But the majority of web content scraping is actually done for malicious and illegal purposes, like stealing copyrighted content, pricing scraping to undercut competitors, and, of course, data breach.
How does a web content scraping bot work?
- The cybercriminal programs a web scraping bot to visit the target website.
- The bot reads the HTML code of the website and looks for relevant data to extract.
- The bot extracts the desired data from the HTML code and may also extract data from the databases that are connected to the victim’s website.
- The extracted data is stored in a structured format, such as a spreadsheet or scraper’s database.
- Once the bot has scraped all the data from the website, the attacker will analyze it for various purposes—for example, for reposting copyrighted materials.
What are the types of content scraping bots?
Content scraping, also known as web scraping, is the act of using bots to download most or all of a website’s content without the owner’s consent. It falls under the category of data scraping and is usually done using automated bots. Website scraper bots can download all of a site’s content within seconds.
In this section, we will cover different types of content scraping, how they work and the impact they can cause on users or businesses.
| Type of Web Scraping Bot | Description | Example & Impact |
| Content scrapers | These are bad bots that scrape websites for specific types of content, such as product listings, emails, blog posts, or news articles, and anything that is stored in the victim’s database. | Online businesses are the primary targets of attackers who use content scrapers to steal large amounts of data from databases. The stolen information is then used to repost it or sell to competitors. Additionally, email addresses can be harvested for spam and email fraud, which can damage the victim’s brand reputation. |
| Price scrapers | Price scraping bots are created to extract pricing information from e-commerce databases. Their purpose is to use this information to undercut competitors’ prices and increase sales. | A shoe reseller business owner may use bots to buy and sell sneakers online. By adjusting their prices based on their competitors’ pricing, the reseller can gain an unfair advantage in the market. This strategy could also apply to other industries that conduct a significant portion of their business through online sales. |
What are the risks of bad bots?
The risks associated with malicious bots extend beyond just business organizations. As a regular user, you are also a prime target for these bots, which puts your personal information, online security, and overall well-being at risk.
One particularly dangerous example is Trickbot, a botnet discovered by researchers in 2019. It was designed to steal login credentials and financial information on a global scale and had the ability to spread ransomware and malware, putting millions of people at risk as the infection on affected machines was not traceable.
The potential dangers associated with bad bot traffic are numerous and should not be taken lightly. Here are just a few of the risks:
- Identity theft. With account takeover bots, personal data can be snatched and used to infiltrate sensitive accounts, which could result in identity theft and cause significant monetary harm to the user.
- Malware infections. It is a prevalent method for bots to infiltrate a computer system, often through downloads disguised as social media or email links. These links may appear as pictures or videos, containing harmful viruses and malware. If a user’s computer becomes infected, it could become part of a botnet.
- Spam. This can be a result of account takeover bots when the attacker uses the victim’s credentials to send out spam emails or messages.
- Information theft. Web scraping bots have the ability to acquire sensitive information, including confidential user data such as login details, personal addresses, and other private information.
- Brand damage. Content scraping bots can duplicate and repost a company’s content on various fake and untrusted websites, which may result in losing potential clients.
- Financial loss. DDoS bots can be used to flood a website with traffic, causing it to be unavailable for regular users and resulting in lost revenue for businesses.
- Data breaches. Credential stuffing bots can be used to test stolen login credentials on multiple sites, increasing the risk of a data breach. This is because if a user’s credentials work on one site, such as a social media account, they may also work on other sites where the user has financial information, such as their bank account.
- Intellectual property theft. Web scraping bots can also be used to steal intellectual property, such as copyrighted images or product designs, leading to financial loss for creators.
How to stop bad bot traffic
The issue now arises on how regular website owners and users like you can prevent malicious bot traffic. Unfortunately, there is no single solution to address this concern. However, there are some recommended measures to stop and prevent the associated risks of bad bot traffic. Let’s explore the following recommendations.
- Implement CAPTCHA challenges. To prevent automated bot attacks, websites can implement measures that require users to complete tasks that only humans can accomplish. These tasks often involve solving puzzles or answering questions before accessing sensitive data on a website.
- Use web application firewalls (WAFs). These can block malicious traffic by analyzing incoming traffic and filtering out suspicious requests.
- Monitor web traffic. This can help identify unusual traffic patterns that may be indicative of bot activity.
- Implement rate limiting. This can limit the number of requests a user or IP address can make within a certain time frame, which can help prevent bot attacks.
- Use bot detection software. This can analyze web traffic to identify and block bot traffic based on specific criteria such as IP addresses, user-agent strings, and behavior patterns.
- Implement bot management policies. This can involve identifying and blocking known bot traffic, blacklisting suspicious IP addresses, and whitelisting known good bots.
- Regularly update software and security protocols. This can help prevent bots from exploiting known vulnerabilities in software or systems.
Using these strategies can help website owners and organizations identify and reduce the risks of malicious bots, improving their online security. However, it’s important to keep in mind that these strategies might also affect legitimate human traffic and helpful bots that enhance website features. To effectively combat malicious bot traffic, website owners should consult with experts to differentiate between good and bad bots and implement mitigation strategies that balance security with website functionality. This helps to ensure that their websites remain accessible to legitimate users while minimizing the risks posed by bad bots. At Gcore, we understand the importance of providing effective measures against bad bot traffic and will provide information on how it assists our clients in countering these threats in the following section.
How does Gcore’s DDoS and bot protection help against bad bot traffic?
Here at Gcore, we guarantee that your online business will continue to function seamlessly, regardless of any disruptions or threats. Our security platform is designed to keep your digital business operations safe from cybercriminal attacks. We have scrubbing centers located globally that are linked to various service providers and have backup copies of essential systems, such as cleaning servers, managing servers, data storage systems, and network equipment. With our platform, you can be confident that any potential attack will not affect your website’s performance or cause any disruption to your visitors and customers. Let’s take a closer look at the protection services we offer to defend against DDoS attacks and malicious bots.
Protection against DDoS attacks
Gcore’s DDoS protection ensures uninterrupted application performance even during large-scale attacks, minimizing the risk of service disruptions and preventing degradation of website performance. Here are some key points about how the DDoS protection in our web security module operates:
- Attackers generate spam traffic to overwhelm targeted servers.
- The DDoS protection layer detects and filters incoming traffic. This includes protection against network and transport layer (L3 and L4) and also against application layer DDoS attacks (L7).
- Real-time bot protection. We’ll prevent parsing, advertisement fraud, and theft of your user’s personal data.
- WAF hacking protection. It protects our clients from manual hacking and attempts to exploit vulnerabilities or loopholes in your website without implementing third-party SDKs or making changes to the application’s code.
Furthermore, there are various security features to protect against DDoS attacks. These are designed to prevent or mitigate the impact of a DDoS attack on a target network or website. Some of the common DDoS security features offered by Gcore include the following:
- A globally distributed network to filter all traffic around the world.
- Our growing distributed network capacity will always exceed any single DDoS attack.
- Protection against low-rate attacks from their first request.
- Advanced load balancing algorithms for better availability.
To learn more, check out our Global DDoS protection page.
Protection against bad bots
At our company, we understand the importance of keeping your web applications and servers safe from malicious bot activities. That’s why we offer top-of-the-line bot protection services that prevent website fraud attacks, spamming of request forms, brute-force attacks, and other harmful bot activities.
How do we achieve this? Our team of experts utilizes advanced algorithms that identify and remove unwanted traffic that has entered your system’s perimeter. This not only prevents overloading but also ensures that your business processes run smoothly. Want to learn more about how our protection module operates? Here are some key points:
- First, bad bots imitate human behavior to conduct activities that are considered inappropriate.
- Second, our system’s bot protection feature identifies and terminates connections from bots engaged in automated activities.
- The workflow of the client only interacts with legitimate users, and not with any bad bot traffic.
Our bot protection system provides protection against the following harmful bad bot activities:
- DDoS botnet attacks
- Account takeover attempts
- Web content scraping
- API data scraping
- Form submission abuse
- TLS session attacks
Discover more details about Gcore’s bot protection.
Now that you’re familiar with our robust DDoS and bot protection services, let’s dive into real-world use cases across various industries and their corresponding descriptions.
| Industry | Description |
| Fintech | Banking institutions are more prone to complex DDoS attacks than other sectors, and attackers aim to not only disable the service but also steal personal and financial information from users. To mitigate such risks, it is essential to monitor individual requests, detect potential threats, and safeguard websites, applications, and APIs. |
| E-commerce | Prevent bad bots from attempting to guess login credentials and passwords in order to gain unauthorized access to your system. Additionally, block bots that scrape your online store for the purpose of gaining a competitive advantage. |
| Gaming | 80% of the attacks are on game servers. Once you fail, you risk losing your reputation and customer loyalty forever. |
| Advertising | With bots accounting for approximately 50% of the world’s web traffic, it is highly likely that a significant portion of the traffic you purchase is fraudulent advertising. By removing these bots from your paid traffic, you can accurately analyze your website’s traffic and optimize your marketing budget accordingly. |
Conclusion
Protecting your website against bad bot traffic is more important now than ever before. These malicious bots can pose a significant risk to both your website’s security and performance, leading to negative impacts on legitimate user traffic. But with Gcore’s effective mitigation strategies, you can safeguard your online systems and services from the risks associated with bad bot activity. Our DDoS protection and Edge Stream services, such as CDN, provide a comprehensive solution that detects and blocks bad bot traffic, ensuring optimal performance and maximum security. To learn more and start protecting your business today, contact us at Gcore.
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One of the most played video games in the world, Minecraft, relies on servers that are frequently a target of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. But why would malicious actors target Minecraft servers? In this article, we’ll look at why these servers are so prone to DDoS attacks and uncover the impact such attacks have on the gaming community and broader cybersecurity landscape. For a comprehensive analysis and expert tips, read our ultimate guide to preventing DDoS attacks on Minecraft servers.Disruption for financial gainFinancial exploitation is a typical motivator for DDoS attacks in Minecraft. Cybercriminals frequently demand ransom to stop their attacks. Server owners, especially those with lucrative private or public servers, may feel pressured to pay to restore normalcy. In some cases, bad actors intentionally disrupt competitors to draw players to their own servers, leveraging downtime for monetary advantage.Services that offer DDoS attacks for hire make these attacks more accessible and widespread. These malicious services target Minecraft servers because the game is so popular, making it an attractive and easy option for attackers.Player and server rivalriesRivalries within the Minecraft ecosystem often escalate to DDoS attacks, driven by competition among players, servers, hosts, and businesses. Players may target opponents during tournaments to disrupt their gaming experience, hoping to secure prize money for themselves. Similarly, players on one server may initiate attacks to draw members to their server and harm the reputation of other servers. Beyond individual players, server hosts also engage in DDoS attacks to disrupt and induce outages for their rivals, subsequently attempting to poach their customers. On a bigger scale, local pirate servers may target gaming service providers entering new markets to harm their brand and hold onto market share. These rivalries highlight the competitive and occasionally antagonistic character of the Minecraft community, where the stakes frequently surpass in-game achievements.Personal vendettas and retaliationPersonal conflicts can occasionally be the source of DDoS attacks in Minecraft. In these situations, servers are targeted in retribution by individual gamers or disgruntled former employees. These attacks are frequently the result of complaints about unsolved conflicts, bans, or disagreements over in-game behavior. Retaliation-driven DDoS events can cause significant disruption, although lower in scope than attacks with financial motivations.Displaying technical masterySome attackers carry out DDoS attacks to showcase their abilities. Minecraft is a perfect testing ground because of its large player base and community-driven server infrastructure. Successful strikes that demonstrate their skills enhance reputations within some underground communities. Instead of being a means to an end, the act itself becomes a badge of honor for those involved.HacktivismHacktivists—people who employ hacking as a form of protest—occasionally target Minecraft servers to further their political or social goals. These attacks are meant to raise awareness of a subject rather than be driven by personal grievances or material gain. To promote their message, they might, for instance, assault servers that are thought to support unfair policies or practices. This would be an example of digital activism. Even though they are less frequent, these instances highlight the various reasons why DDoS attacks occur.Data theftMinecraft servers often hold significant user data, including email addresses, usernames, and sometimes even payment information. Malicious actors sometimes launch DDoS attacks as a smokescreen to divert server administrators’ attention from their attempts to breach the server and steal confidential information. This dual-purpose approach disrupts gameplay and poses significant risks to user privacy and security, making data theft one of the more insidious motives behind such attacks.Securing the Minecraft ecosystemDDoS attacks against Minecraft are motivated by various factors, including personal grudges, data theft, and financial gain. Every attack reveals wider cybersecurity threats, interferes with gameplay, and damages community trust. Understanding these motivations can help server owners take informed steps to secure their servers, but often, investing in reliable DDoS protection is the simplest and most effective way to guarantee that Minecraft remains a safe and enjoyable experience for players worldwide. By addressing the root causes and improving server resilience, stakeholders can mitigate the impact of such attacks and protect the integrity of the game.Gcore offers robust, multi-layered security solutions designed to shield gaming communities from the ever-growing threat of DDoS attacks. Founded by gamers for gamers, Gcore understands the industry’s unique challenges. Our tools enable smooth gameplay and peace of mind for both server owners and players.Want an in-depth look at how to secure your Minecraft servers?Download our ultimate guide
What is a DDoS attack?
A DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack is a type of cyberattack in which a hacker overwhelms a server with an excessive number of requests, causing the server to stop functioning properly. This can cause the website, app, game, or other online service to become slow, unresponsive, or completely unavailable. DDoS attacks can result in lost customers and revenue for the victim. DDoS attacks are becoming increasingly common, with a 46% increase in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.How do DDoS attacks work?DDoS attacks work by overwhelming and flooding a company’s resources so that legitimate users cannot get through. The attacker creates huge amounts of malicious traffic by creating a botnet, a collection of compromised devices that work together to carry out the attack without the device owners’ knowledge. The attacker, referred to as the botmaster, sends instructions to the botnet in order to implement the attack. The attacker forces these bots to send an enormous amount of internet traffic to a victim’s resource. As a result, the server can’t process real users trying to access the website or app. This causes customer dissatisfaction and frustration, lost revenue, and reputational damage for companies.Think of it this way: Imagine a vast call center. Someone dials the number but gets a busy tone. This is because a single spammer has made thousands of automated calls from different phones. The call center’s lines are overloaded, and the legitimate callers cannot get through.DDoS attacks work similarly, but online: The fraudster’s activity completely blocks the end users from reaching the website or online service.Different types of DDoS attacksThere are three categories of DDoS attacks, each attacking a different network communication layer. These layers come from the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) model, the foundational framework for network communication that describes how different systems and devices connect and communicate. This model has seven layers. DDoS attacks seek to exploit vulnerabilities across three of them: L3, L4, and L7.While all three types of attacks have the same end goal, they differ in how they work and which online resources they target. L3 and L4 DDoS attacks target servers and infrastructure, while L7 attacks affect the app itself.Volumetric attacks (L3) overwhelm the network equipment, bandwidth, or server with a high volume of traffic.Connection protocol attacks (L4) target the resources of a network-based service, like website firewalls or server operating systems.Application layer attacks (L7) overwhelm the network layer, where the application operates with many malicious requests, which leads to application failure.1. Volumetric attacks (L3)L3, or volumetric, DDoS attacks are the most common form of DDoS attack. They work by flooding internal networks with malicious traffic, aiming to exhaust bandwidth and disrupt the connection between the target network or service and the internet. By exploiting key communication protocols, attackers send massive amounts of traffic, often with spoofed IP addresses, to overwhelm the victim’s network. As the network equipment strains to process this influx of data, legitimate requests are delayed or dropped, leading to service degradation or even complete network failure.2. Connection protocol attacks (L4)Protocol attacks occur when attackers send connection requests from multiple IP addresses to target server open ports. One common tactic is a SYN flood, where attackers initiate connections without completing them. This forces the server to allocate resources to these unfinished sessions, quickly leading to resource exhaustion. As these fake requests consume the server’s CPU and memory, legitimate traffic is unable to get through. Firewalls and load balancers managing incoming traffic can also be overwhelmed, resulting in service outages.3. Application layer attacks (L7)Application layer attacks strike at the L7 layer, where applications operate. Web applications handle everything from simple static websites to complex platforms like e-commerce sites, social media networks, and SaaS solutions. In an L7 attack, a hacker deploys multiple bots or machines to repeatedly request the same resource until the server becomes overwhelmed.By mimicking genuine user behavior, attackers flood the web application with seemingly legitimate requests, often at high rates. For example, they might repeatedly submit incorrect login credentials or overload the search function by continuously searching for products. As the server consumes its resources managing these fake requests, genuine users experience slow response times or may be completely denied access to the application.How can DDoS attacks be prevented?To stay one step ahead of attackers, use a DDoS protection solution to protect your web resources. A mitigation solution detects and blocks harmful DDoS traffic sent by attackers, keeping your servers and applications safe and functional. If an attacker targets your server, your legitimate users won’t notice any change—even during a considerable attack—because the protection solution will allow safe traffic while identifying and blocking malicious requests.DDoS protection providers also give you reports on attempted DDoS attacks. This way, you can track when the attack happened, as well as the size and scale of the attack. This enables you to respond effectively, analyze the potential implications of the attack, and implement risk management strategies to mitigate future disruptions.Repel DDoS attacks with GcoreAt Gcore, we offer robust and proven security solutions to protect your business from DDoS attacks. Gcore DDoS Protection provides comprehensive mitigation at L3, L4, and L7 for websites, apps, and servers. We also offer L7 protection as part of Gcore WAAP, which keeps your web apps and APIs secure against a range of modern threats using AI-enabled threat detection.Take a look at our recent Radar report to learn more about the latest DDoS attack trends and the changing strategies and patterns of cyberattacks.Read our DDoS Attack Trends Radar report
How to Spot and Stop a DDoS Attack
The faster you detect and resolve a DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack, the less damage it can do to your business. Read on to learn how to identify the signs of a DDoS attack, differentiate it from other issues, and implement effective protection strategies to safeguard your business. You’ll also discover why professional mitigation is so important for your business.The Chronology of a DDoS AttackThe business impact of a DDoS attack generally increases the longer it continues. While the first few minutes might not be noticeable without a dedicated solution with monitoring capabilities, your digital services could be taken offline within an hour. No matter who your customer is or how you serve them, every business stands to lose customers, credibility, and revenue through downtime.The First Few Minutes: Initial Traffic SurgeAttackers often start with a low-volume traffic flow to avoid early detection. This phase, known as pre-flooding, evaluates the target system’s response and defenses. You may notice a slight increase in traffic, but it could still be within the range of normal fluctuations.Professional DDoS mitigation services use algorithms to spot these surges, identify whether the traffic increase is malicious, and stop attacks before they can have an impact. Without professional protection, it’s almost impossible to spot this pre-flooding phase, leading you into the following phases of an attack.The First Hour: Escalating TrafficThe attack will quickly escalate, resulting in a sudden and extreme increase in traffic volume. During this stage, network performance will start to degrade noticeably, causing unusually slow loading times for websites and services.Look out for network disconnections, or unusually slow performance. These are telltale signs of a DDoS attack in its early stages.The First Few Hours: Service DisruptionAs the attack intensifies, the website may become completely inaccessible. You might experience an increased volume of spam emails as part of a coordinated effort to overwhelm your systems. Frequent loss of connectivity within the local network can occur as the attack overloads the infrastructure.You can identify this stage by looking for website or network unavailability. Users will experience continuous problems when trying to connect to the targeted application or server.Within 24 Hours: Sustained ImpactIf the attack continues, the prolonged high traffic volume will cause extended service outages and significant slowdowns. By this point, it is clear that a DDoS attack is in progress, especially if multiple indicators are present simultaneously.By now, not only is your website and/or network unavailable, but you’re also at high risk of data breaches due to the loss of control of your digital resources.Distinguishing DDoS Attacks from Other IssuesWhile DDoS attack symptoms like slow performance and service outages are common, they can also be caused by other problems. Here’s how to differentiate between a DDoS attack and other issues:AspectDDoS attackHosting problemsLegitimate traffic spikeSoftware issuesTraffic volumeSudden, extreme increaseNo significant increaseHigh but expected during peaksNormal, higher, lower, or zeroService responseExtremely slow or unavailableSlow or intermittentSlower but usually functionalErratic, with specific errorsError messagesFrequent Service UnavailableInternal Server Error, TimeoutNo specific errors, slower responsesSpecific to the softwareDurationProlonged, until mitigatedVaries, often until resolvedTemporary, during peaks, often predictableVaries based on the bugSource of trafficMultiple, distributed, malicious signaturesConsistent with normal traffic, localizedGeographically diverse, consistent patternsDepends on the user baseProtective Strategies Against DDoS AttacksPrevention is the best defense against DDoS attacks. Here are some strategies to protect your business:Content delivery networks (CDNs): CDNs distribute your traffic across multiple servers worldwide, reducing the load on any single server and mitigating the impact of DDoS attacks.DDoS protection solutions: These services provide specialized tools to detect, mitigate, and block DDoS attacks. They continuously monitor traffic patterns in real time to detect anomalies and automatically respond to and stop attacks without manual intervention.Web application and API protection (WAAP): WAAP solutions protect web applications and APIs from a wide range of threats, including DDoS attacks. They use machine learning and behavioral analysis to detect and block sophisticated attacks, from DDoS assaults to SQL injections.Gcore provides all three protection strategies in a single platform, offering your business the security it needs to thrive in a challenging threat landscape.Don’t Delay, Protect Your Business NowGcore provides comprehensive DDoS protection, keeping your services online and your business thriving even during an attack. Explore Gcore DDoS Protection or get instant protection now.Discover the latest DDoS trends and threats in our H3 2023 report
Improve Your Privacy and Data Security with TLS Encryption on CDN
The web is a public infrastructure: Anyone can use it. Encryption is a must to ensure that communications over this public infrastructure are secure and private. You don’t want anyone to read or modify the data you send or receive, like credit card information when paying for an online service.TLS encryption is a basic yet crucial safeguard that ensures only the client (the user’s device, like a laptop) and server can read your request and response data; third parties are locked out. You can run TLS on a CDN for improved performance, caching, and TLS management. If you want to learn more about TLS and how running it on a CDN can improve your infrastructure, this is the right place to start.What Is TLS Encryption and Why Does It Matter?TLS, transport layer security, encrypts data sent via the web to prevent it from being seen or changed while it’s in transit. For that reason, it’s called encryption in-transit technology. TLS is also commonly called HTTPS when used with HTTP or SSL, as previous versions of the technology were based on it. TLS ensures high encryption performance and forward secrecy. To learn more about encryption, check out our dedicated article.TLS is a vital part of the web because it ensures trust for end users and search engines alike. End users can rest assured that their data—like online banking information or photos of their children—can’t be accessed. Search engines know that information protected by TLS is trustworthy, so they rate it higher than non-protected content.What’s the Connection Between TLS and CDN?A CDN, or content delivery network, helps improve your website’s performance by handling the delivery of your content from its own servers rather than your website’s server. When a CDN uses TLS, it ensures that your content is encrypted as it travels from your server to the CDN and from the CDN to your users.With TLS offloading, your server only needs to encrypt the content for each CDN node, not for every individual user. This reduces the workload on your server.Here’s a simple breakdown of how it works:Your server encrypts the content once and sends it to the CDN.The CDN caches this encrypted content.When a user requests the content, the CDN serves it directly to them, handling all encryption and reducing the need to repeatedly contact your server.Without a CDN, your server would have to encrypt and send content to each user individually, which can slow things down. With a CDN, your server encrypts the content once for the CDN. The CDN then takes over, encrypting and serving the content to all users, speeding up the process and reducing the load on your server.Figure 1: Comparison of how content is served with TLS on the web server (left) vs on CDN (right)Benefits of “Offloading” TLS to a CDNOffloading TLS to a CDN can improve your infrastructure with improved performance, better caching, and simplified TLS management.Increased PerformanceWhen establishing a TLS connection, the client and server must exchange information to negotiate a session key. This exchange involves four messages being sent over the network, as shown in Figure 2. The higher the latency between the two participants, the longer it takes to establish the connection. CDN nodes are typically closer to the client, resulting in lower latency and faster connection establishment.As mentioned above, CDN nodes handle all the encryption tasks. This frees up your server’s resources for other tasks and allows you to simplify its code base.Figure 2: TLS handshakeImproved CachingIf your data is encrypted, the CDN can’t cache it. A single file will look different from the CDN nodes for every new TLS connection, eliminating the CDN benefits (Figure 3). If the CDN holds the certificates, it can negotiate encryption with the clients and collect the files from your server in plaintext. This allows the CDN to cache the content efficiently and serve it faster to users.Figure 3: TLS and CDN caching comparedSimplified TLS ManagementThe CDN takes care of maintenance tasks such as certificate issuing, rotation, and auto-renewal. With the CDN managing TLS, your server’s code base can be simplified, and you no longer need to worry about potential TLS updates in the future.TLS Encryption with Gcore CDNWith the Gcore CDN we don’t just take care of your TLS encryption, but also file compression and DNS lookups. This way, you can unburden your servers from non-functional requirements, which leads to smaller, easier-to-maintain code bases, lower CPU, memory, and traffic impact, and a lower workload for the teams managing those servers.Gcore CDN offers two TLS offloading options:Free Let’s Encrypt certificates with automatic validation, an effective and efficient choice for simple security needsPaid custom certificates, ideal if your TLS setup has more complex requirementsHow to Enable HTTPS with a Free Let’s Encrypt CertificateSetting up HTTPS for your website is quick, easy, and free. First, make sure you have a Gcore CDN resource for your website. If you haven’t created one yet, you can do so in the Gcore Customer Portal by clicking Create CDN resource in the top-right of the window (Figure 4) and following the setup wizard. You’ll be asked to update your DNS records so they point to the Gcore CDN, allowing Gcore to issue the certificates later.Figure 4: Create CDN resourceNext, open the resource settings by selecting your CDN resource from the list in the center (Figure 5).Figure 5: Select the CDN resourceEnable HTTPS in the resource settings, as shown in Figure 6:Select SSL in the left navigationClick the Enable HTTPS checkboxClick Get SSL certificateFigure 6: Get an SSL certificateYour certificate will usually be issued within 30 minutes.Our Commitment to Online SecurityAt Gcore, we’re committed to making the internet secure for everyone. As part of this mission, we offer free CDN and free TLS certificates. Take advantage and protect your resources efficiently for free!Get TLS encryption on Gcore CDN free
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