DDoS attacks peaked at over 1800 attacks per day in January, causing huge financial losses for businesses.
In 2021, it’s absolutely necessary to protect your dedicated servers from potential DDoS attacks.
And the best way to do that is by getting a DDoS protected dedicated server.
In this article, we’re going to cover:
- What is a DDoS Attack?
- What is a DDoS Protected Dedicated Server?
- How Does DDoS Protection Work?
- 3 Main Categories of DDoS Attacks
- 5 DDoS Protected Dedicated Server Use Cases
- How to Get Started With DDoS Protected Dedicated Servers
- DDoS Protected Dedicated Servers FAQ
What is a DDoS Attack?
A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is targeting a web service or server with the intention of crashing its normal operations by sending heavy traffic on its way from a distributed network of users called a botnet.
DDoS attacks are malicious attacks done to bring a website or an entire server down and create damage in the form of revenue loss for the owner.
When a web service experiences a DDoS attack it usually crashes, which can lead to significant financial damages, as your users can’t use the website or application.
To protect from DDoS attacks, though, you can use DDoS-protected dedicated servers.
The best dedicated servers come with DDoS protection right outside-the-box, which helps prevent such attacks from happening.
What is a DDoS Protected Dedicated Server?
DDoS protected dedicated servers have hardware and software set up in place to detect and mitigate DDoS attacks.
A DDoS protected server will shield your website or web service from malicious DDoS attacks that can crash your website and cause you financial loss.
They are most useful for gaming and e-commerce sites that are very prone to DDoS attacks.
Planning to buy a dedicated server? Check out these 7 types of dedicated servers to help you pick the right one!
How Does DDoS Protection Work?
DDoS protection works by monitoring the traffic which comes to your dedicated server. All incoming traffic to your server is scanned in order to determine whether it is genuine or malicious.
When DDoS protection detects that incoming traffic is malicious, it will be rerouted and not allowed to pass to the server.
By blocking malicious traffic, all other traffic to the server is uninterrupted. Therefore, your web service doesn’t experience downtime even when you’re under a DDoS attack.
3 Main Categories of DDoS Attacks
There’s three main categories of DDoS attack types. A DDoS attack can be an application layer attack, volumetric based attack, or a protocol attack.
Each type of DDoS attack has a different intention and consequences, but they all aim to take the web service or server out of order.
Let’s take a look at what characterizes these three types of DDoS attacks, and what their consequences are.
#1. Application Layer DDoS Attacks
Application layer DDoS attacks target the applications on your dedicated server and overload them with different requests. To the server, these requests look just like other regular user requests. Often, they are designed to target vulnerabilities found in your applications. Due to the large volume of requests, the server ends up crashing.
Common types of DDoS attacks that fall into this category are HTTP floods, low and slow attacks, GET and POST attacks, slowloris, and more.
#2. Volumetric Based DDoS Attacks
Volumetric based DDoS attacks on your dedicated servers specifically target your server’s bandwidth. They work by sending malicious traffic your way and overwhelming your network bandwidth.
A volumetric DDoS attack will not only bring your server down, but will also result in large fees for using extra bandwidth, unless you have an unmetered dedicated server. Having unmetered bandwidth can save you from having to pay additional monthly fees.
Volumetric DDoS attacks are characterized by malicious floods of so called spoofed-packets, which are sent towards your server and use up tons of bandwidth. They include UDP and ICMP floods, among other similar attacks.
#3. Protocol DDoS Attacks
This category of DDoS attacks includes Ping of Death, SYN floods, Smurf DDoS, etc. They attack the layers of the dedicated server’s communication functions.
This type of DDoS attack is designed to use up the server’s resources. Due to the heavy resource use, the server ends up crashing, resulting in your web service being taken down.
5 DDoS Protected Dedicated Server Use Cases
DDoS protected dedicated servers are crucial for servers that attract malicious hackers. These include servers that have a lot of active users, or servers hosting websites that are generating lots of revenue.
Let’s take a look at the most common use cases where a DDoS protected dedicated server will come in handy:
#1. Gaming Servers
Gaming servers are the most common target for DDoS attacks because the online e-sport community is very large. Hackers often try to attack servers for popular games such as Minecraft, Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Team Fortress, and more.
That’s why you should get an anti DDoS dedicated server if you’re hosting games. You’ll avoid losing tons of money if you ever become a hacker’s target.
#2. E-Commerce Servers
To secure your e-commerce platform and avoid experiencing downtime, you should absolutely get a DDoS protected server for your online store.
A DDoS attack on your e-commerce server will bring your server down, and can cost your potential customers. This, in turn, harms customer satisfaction and leads to lowered profits.
#3. Online Banking Servers
If you’re running an online banking service on a server, you will highly benefit from using a DDoS protected dedicated server.
When you’re dealing with other people’s money, the last thing you want is getting a DDoS attack sent your way. Your customers will not be happy if they are locked out of their funds even for just a few hours.
#4. SaaS Application Servers
As a SaaS business, 100% of your revenue comes from your app – and if the app has frequent down-time, you’re bound to lose users.
An enterprise client that relies on your app to run their business will switch providers without a second thought if your SaaS is down, even if it’s just for a few hours.
As such, using a DDoS protected dedicated server is essential for any SaaS business.
#5. Email Servers
Most companies use a private email server, which is extremely easy to DDoS.
A hacker can simply find your IP address through your email address and send a DDoS attack your way.
As such, it’s basically essential to use a DDoS protected dedicated server for an email server.
Check out this article if you want to read more about other benefits of dedicated servers.
How to Get Started With DDoS Protected Dedicated Servers
You can easily protect your web services from DDoS attacks by choosing a dedicated server from RedSwitches.
RedSwitches offers cheap dedicated servers that come with free 5Gbps DDoS protection.
Our affordable bare-metal servers are blazing fast and will support even your most demanding applications.
Get in touch with us to buy the best DDoS protected dedicated server today, starting at just $100/month!
DDoS Protected Dedicated Servers FAQ
#1. Why Do DDoS Attacks Happen?
There are numerous reasons why a DDoS attack might come your way. Your competition might use a DDoS attack to harm your business, or hackers might mess with your website just for the fun of it.
Sometimes, hackers even use DDoS attacks to ransom money from their victims. Meaning, they don’t stop the DDoS attack until you pay them a certain fee.
#2. How Can I Protect My Server From DDoS Attacks?
It’s important to take precautionary measures in order to protect your server from DDoS attacks. The first step is to buy a dedicated server that includes DDoS protection.
You should then secure your network infrastructure with a firewall and a VPN. And finally, you should prepare your team to handle a DDoS attack if it ever were to happen. This way, your team will be trained to mitigate the potential damage caused by a DDoS attack.
#3. Do All Servers Have DDoS Protection?
DDoS protected dedicated servers are very common, but not all hosting providers offer the service. When choosing dedicated server hosting, you should check out whether the hosting provider offers DDoS protection with their dedicated server packages.
If you need help choosing a hosting provider, check our list of the top 10 dedicated server hosting providers!
Key Takeaways
And that’s a wrap! You should now know the importance of DDoS protection, and why you should get a DDoS protected dedicated server. Let’s do a short recap:
- A DDoS attack is an attack that aims to take down your hosted apps and services. It’s achieved by sending malicious traffic towards your server.
- DDoS protected dedicated servers offer the best protection against DDoS attacks.
- DDoS protection works by using hardware and software to check incoming traffic and reroute it if it’s malicious.
- The three main categories of DDoS attacks are:
- Application layer attacks
- Volumetric based attacks
- Protocol attacks
- DDoS protected dedicated servers are most commonly used for gaming, e-commerce, online banking, SaaS apps, and email servers.
- The easiest way to protect your web services and apps from DDoS attacks is to get a dedicated server from RedSwitches. All of them come with free 5Gbps DDoS protection!
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