The Best DDoS Protection for Enterprise Websites

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are a pressing concern every year, especially for enterprises. In 2022, global DDoS attacks rose by 150%. In the Americas, that number rose even faster – 212%.

These attacks are increasing in frequency and severity, plaguing enterprise websites with poor performance. In the worst-case scenario, DDoS attacks can sabotage your revenue by causing website downtime for days on end.

Here’s the good news: There are DDoS protection services that mitigate the risk and minimize the damage. This protection is a must-have for any enterprise with an online presence.

Let’s consider the 10 best DDoS protection services and how to choose the right fit for your enterprise website.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

DDoS attacks attempt to bring down your website by overwhelming it with spikes in web traffic. These spikes consume your host servers’ processing power until no more requests can be handled, making your website inaccessible to legitimate visitors.

A DDoS attack is carried out with a network of malware-infected devices known as a botnet. A botnet can compromise thousands or even millions of computers, allowing a single attacker to operate them using a control server and commands.

Attackers have various motivations, including targeting competitors, ransoming enterprises for money, pursuing an ideological agenda, or simply wanting to cause chaos.

Whatever the motivation, DDoS attacks drive away customers, grind revenue to a standstill, and damage your reputation as they render your website inaccessible.

There are two types of DDoS protection: Traditional (on-premises) and cloud DDoS protection.

On-premises measures are deployed within a physical location and generally consist of devices (e.g., firewalls and routers) that work together to ensure comprehensive security. While traditional DDoS protection can be effective against basic volumetric attacks, more may be needed for large-scale attacks.

Cloud-based DDoS protection is more suited to large-scale attacks, as it leverages a network of global servers to distribute unwanted traffic rather than overwhelming your servers with the load.

However, you can get the best of both worlds by combining cloud-based DDoS protection with traditional DDoS protection. This hybrid approach offers the ultimate defense against all types of DDoS attacks.

A DDoS attack can last for hours or days. For an enterprise, these attacks can cost up to $300,000 per minute as productivity tanks, sales grind to a halt, and your employees scramble to get the servers back up.

But there’s another hidden cost: The damage to your brand’s reputation. Visitors will be frustrated as your website becomes extremely slow or inaccessible. Even loyal customers can become skeptical about your website’s security, and this can drive them into the arms of your competitors.

While any website can be a victim of DDoS attacks, enterprise websites are at a higher risk of being targeted by malware strains that exploit enterprise vulnerabilities, including Mirai, QSnatch, and FluBot. Plus, enterprises are often singled out for ransom DDoS attacks.

Without robust security measures, a single attack on your website can cause a total outage, lost sales, and reputational damage. That’s why your enterprise needs cloud DDoS protection.

An anti-DDoS service routes your web traffic through its content delivery network (CDN) with endpoints worldwide. It then analyzes the incoming traffic to detect various warning signs and block malicious traffic before it ever reaches your servers. Lastly, the DDoS protection service forwards legitimate users to your servers, giving them access to your website.

A typical anti-DDoS service implements security measures such as geolocation filtering, IP address reputation checks, and CAPTCHA tests.

In this way, cloud DDoS protection services stop an attack while allowing legitimate users to continue browsing. The difficulty of stopping botnets is that compromised computers come from all over the globe. But anti-DDoS services have become more sophisticated over the years.

Some DDoS protection services offer temporary strict filtering when you’re under attack, which more painstakingly scans traffic for anomalies. While this can result in some false positives for legitimate users, it helps your website stay online despite ongoing DDoS attacks.

Now that you know why you need cloud DDoS protection, let’s explore the essential features to look for when choosing a service provider.

• Scalability —To handle massive attacks, you need enterprise-level DDoS protection with a global infrastructure.
• Automated bot detection —The best DDoS protection services use sophisticated algorithms to detect and neutralize dangerous bots.
• Real-time monitoring and alerting — The software you choose should be able to alert you when it detects unusual traffic.
• “Under Attack” mode — This mode temporarily heightens restrictions to block unwanted traffic at the cost of more false positives for legitimate traffic.
• Rate limiting— Your DDoS mitigation service should be able to prevent IPs from making too many requests in a short period.
• IP whitelisting/blacklisting — The best anti-DDoS services selectively grant access to your server while blocking suspicious IPs.
• Geoblocking: The ideal anti-DDoS software blocks users from countries where DDoS attacks often originate. This can be helpful while under attack but can be circumvented by IP spoofing.
• Software integrations —DDoS protection software can integrate with web hosting, CDNs, web application firewalls (WAFs), traffic analysis tools, security information and event management (SIEM) tools, and machine learning/AI tools that can learn to detect non-legitimate traffic better.
• Threat detection —Some of the best DDoS protection services offer additional security features, such as protection from hacking and brute force attacks.
• Great support —Malicious actors can strike at any time. Soyou need fast, 24/7 support and top-notch security management systems.