Cloudflare and AWS Autoscaling Group for DDoS attack mitigation
Tags: webdev, security, aws, programming
Published: 2018-03-16 15:06:41

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title: Cloudflare and AWS Autoscaling Group for DDoS attack mitigation
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tags: webdev, security, aws, programming
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The average hourly cost of being offline because of an infrastructure failure is about $100,000 per hour. What’s more, you lose customer credibility to your brand and clients as a consequence.

Unfortunately, today the frequency and strength of DDoS attacks are on the rise. Plus, by reason of using multiple insecure IoT devices, the development of botnets waging distributed volumetric attacks is easier than ever before. 


<h3>How does a DDoS attack work?</h3>
 

By infecting computer systems with malware and spreading malicious software through emails, sites, and social media, an attacker creates a network of infected machines, with the ability of a remote control.

The group of infected machines is called “botnet”. Attackers create botnets for them to generate huge traffic floods to clog up and overwhelm normal traffic and overload the targeted service. 

For this purpose, botnets can send the target multiple connection requests or make computers send the large volumes of random garbage data.

As the traffic generated by botnets is designed using hundreds and thousands of sources and each bot represents a legitimate Internet-enabled device, it’s a real challenge to separate regular user traffic from the damaging one. 


<h3>How to prevent DDoS attacks</h3>
 

AS DDoS attacks can significantly harm companies (from financial institutions to news websites), making it really difficult to access important information and resulting in request losses, protection from DDoS attacks becomes the major concern.

Dealing with a DDoS attack the key challenge is to separate normal traffic from the attack. The more complex and multi-vector attack is, the more complicated the task. Thus, the main attacker’s goal is to make a mitigation process as complex as possible.

Another difficulty is that DDoS traffic can come in different forms, from un-spoofed single source attacks to complex multi-vector DDoS attacks, that use various pathways to overload the targeted service.

When using that mitigation practices that include dropping or limiting traffic in order to throw regular traffic out of the damaging one, you should note that a multi-vector adaptive DDoS attack can also adapt to the applying countermeasures.

In this case, a good option is to use a layered solution. Now, let’s consider the best tools to mitigate a distributed denial-of-service attack. To create the best DDoS attack mitigation strategy, network admins generally use them in various combinations.

Also, learn more about the </span><a href="https://smartym.pro/blog/distributed-denial-of-service-ddos-attacks-meaning-types-and-tools-to-mitigate/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">types of DDoS attacks.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Now, let's consider the best DDoS mitigation solutions.


<h3>Intro to Cloudflare tool</h3>
 
</span><a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cloudflare</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> is one of the best DDoS mitigation solutions, enjoyed and appreciated by web development teams. In December 2017, Forrester independent research firm named Cloudflare a leading tool for DDoS attack protection.

<i>In this survey, Cloudflare showed itself as the most successful solution based on the analysis of various criteria, involving its pricing model, DDoS mitigation capacity, scalability, implementation length, and mitigation of different types of </span><a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ddos/what-is-a-ddos-attack/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">DDoS attacks.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"></i>

Cloudflare enables to secure, optimize, and speed up any web properties (websites, SaaS services, APIs, and other Internet-connected properties) with no need in installing software or making code changes.

Protected by Cloudflare, all web traffic is flown through an intelligent and safe global network. What’s more, the network becomes smarter with each new online service added and gets improved thanks to increased site performance, optimized traffic, and decreased spam level.


<h3>Intro to AWS Autoscaling Group</h3>
 
</span><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Amazon Web Services</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> provide flexible reliable infrastructure and various services helping developers protect against DDoS and build high-scalable architectures following AWS Best Practices for DDoS mitigation. 

Get insight into </span><a href="https://d1.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/Security/DDoS_White_Paper.pdf"><span style="font-weight: 400;">AWS Best Practices for DDoS resiliency.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">

There are a lot of AWS services you can use for DDoS resiliency: Amazon CloudFront, AWS WAF, AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon Route 53, aimed at managing traffic, rejecting unacceptable requests, and reducing application downtime and latency.

AWS Shield, a DDoS attack mitigation service, integrates with Amazon Web Services and allows instant detection and automatic inline mitigation techniques to protect the targeted service that runs on AWS. 


Find out <b></span><a href="https://smartym.pro/blog/ddos-attack-mitigation-using-cloudflare-and-aws-autoscaling-group-in-our-work/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">how to mitigate DDoS attacks with Cloudflare and AWS.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"></b>