What is DDoS Protection? - Explanation & Meaning
Learn what DDoS protection is, how DDoS attacks work, and which mitigation techniques like Cloudflare, rate limiting, and WAF protect your applications.
Definition
DDoS protection (Distributed Denial of Service) encompasses all technologies and strategies deployed to protect systems from DDoS attacks, where massive amounts of traffic attempt to overwhelm and make a service unavailable.
Technical explanation
DDoS attacks fall into three categories: volumetric attacks (flooding bandwidth with UDP floods or DNS amplification), protocol attacks (abusing network protocols like SYN floods), and application-layer attacks (HTTP floods that exhaust web server resources). Modern mitigation services like Cloudflare, AWS Shield, and Akamai operate as reverse proxies that filter malicious traffic before it reaches the origin server. Anycast networks distribute traffic across global data centers to spread the impact. Rate limiting restricts the number of requests per IP address or session. Web Application Firewalls (WAF) analyze HTTP traffic for suspicious patterns and block malicious requests. Challenge pages with CAPTCHA or JavaScript challenges distinguish bots from legitimate users. Geo-blocking can restrict traffic from suspicious regions. Auto-scaling in cloud environments absorbs traffic spikes, while circuit breakers prevent downstream services from being overwhelmed.
How MG Software applies this
MG Software configures DDoS protection as standard for all production applications we deliver. We use Cloudflare as the first line of defense with custom WAF rules, rate limiting, and bot management. Our applications are designed with scalability in mind to handle traffic spikes. We monitor traffic patterns and set up alerts for abnormal surges.
Practical examples
- A news website that withstands a volumetric DDoS attack during a major news event thanks to Cloudflare's anycast network distributing traffic across multiple data centers.
- An online store that activates rate limiting during Black Friday to block bots attempting to mass-purchase products while allowing real customers to shop unhindered.
- A gaming platform that implements application-layer DDoS protection with WAF rules that detect and block repeated identical requests without affecting legitimate players.
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
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