1. Strengthen Your Bandwidth

While this isn’t necessarily a way to protect your website from a DDoS, it can help it withstand one without going down. The more bandwidth you have, the more distributed denial of service attacks your server can handle without giving out. Think about it – you never see the big websites like Google, Amazon, and Facebook go down because of a DDoS attack.

This is partly because their servers have lots of bandwidth, a lot more than most conventional DDoS attacks can compromise, and because they have really good security. Of course, more bandwidth costs additional money and I’m not saying that you need to spend as much as Facebook does on your server – but the more you do, the larger the DDoS has to be in order to compromise your website.

2. DDoS Mitigation

The key to preventing a DDoS attack is detecting it. Once you detect it, you can block the IP addresses commencing the attack from accessing your website and causing damage. DDoS mitigation is one of the most popular methods of detecting a distributed denial of service attack and redirecting it from your main server.

Various cloud providers can do this for you, by monitoring the incoming traffic to your web page and looking far and wide for anything that might resemble an attack.

3. Content Delivery Networks

Using a CDN is another popular way people protect their websites from a distributed denial of service. Simply put, using a CDN means that your website is hosted on multiple IP addresses; so even if a DDoS attack succeeds on one of them, you still have a few backups that can keep your website running until you figure out what is going on.
This is probably the most efficient and cost-effective method of DDoS protection for small businesses, and it also has other bonuses that your website can benefit from – like reducing access latency to your website from remote locations.

4. Contact Your ISP

Your internet service provider can be a great help when dealing with DDoS attacks. Call them up and ask them if they can detect incoming DDoS attacks and re-route the traffic when they happen, and if they’re a good provider they will do everything that they can to help you as their client. Some ISPs offer certain protective services at an additional cost, so that’s also something that you should consider.

Combine this with one of the aforementioned methods of protection, because it’s always a good idea to have multiple layers of security when it comes to dealing with a DDoS.

5. Hire a DDoS Specialist

When all else fails, hiring someone whose job is to offer Internet security to website owners is probably your best bet. There are services out there like Akamai, Incapsula, and Neustar that can help, and while it’s definitely an additional investment you get the expertise and technology that you could never get on your own.
As your business grows this option is more and more viable, so definitely keep it in mind.

The Bottom Line

As you can see, there are many ways you can protect yourself from a DDoS attack – it all depends on your particular needs and how much you’re willing to invest in your security. DDoS attacks are ridiculously powerful nowadays (in the range of 300 Gbps to 500 Gbps) and they’re causing more damage than before, so if there’s ever a time to start investing in anti-DDoS security, it is now.
Hopefully, you’ll get some use out of these tips and won’t have to suffer a distributed denial of service in the future, because that is no one’s idea of a good time. Good luck!

The post 5 Tips to Protect Your Website from DDoS Attacks appeared first on Colocation America.

So is there anything that you yourself can do to protect yourself online and make your connection more secure? Fortunately, there is, indeed. There are a lot of precautions that you can take that, when put together, make for some pretty strong protection against hackers. Here are some tips for things that you can try right away in order to protect your data and browse more securely.

1. Choose Strong Passwords

This one should be pretty obvious, but the more complex your password is, the harder it will be for brute-force software to crack it. Try to use both uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. Don’t use anything obvious, such as your wife’s birthday or your kids’ names as your password, because that’s the first thing the hacker will think of. Try to use as many different passwords as you can, and keep them all in a safe place.

2. Don’t Stay Logged In

Most of us are guilty of leaving a logged-in Facebook page unattended, although if you aren’t around malicious people, the worst thing that can happen is a silly, controversial status about your sexuality or something of the sort. However, this is a serious mistake if you’re concerned about your security, especially if you happen to do it at work. Close all social media when you’re done using them and don’t tick any “Remember me” boxes.

3. Clear Your Browser History

You’d be amazed how much information gets left behind in your browser history. Not just sites you’ve visited, but also passwords and all kinds of other sensitive data that could leave you vulnerable if someone gets a hold of them. Make it a habit to clean all your browsing data once a day. It might be a nuisance to always input your password and log into the same website tens of times a day, but trust us when we say that you’ll quickly get used to it.

4. Secure Your Smartphone

We recommend that you use some kind of sophisticated locking system on your smartphone if you aren’t using it already. Pattern locks aren’t that safe, and you’d be better off with a pin lock or a fingerprint lock, if possible. Smartphones have the tendency to sync with every possible online account that you have, which gives whoever is using your phone instant access to a lot (if not all) of your files. Your phone is your property and no one should be able to look at it without your permission or knowledge, and locking it adequately can prevent just that from happening.

5. Use HTTPS

HTTPS means that your connection is secure and private. Any modern browser will probably warn you whenever you’re trying to access a site that’s ordinary HTTP instead of HTTPS, but keep an eye out for this just in case. An ordinary HTTP connection can potentially be read by a third party, which is definitely not something you want. Fortunately, almost all of the most popular websites such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter have been using HTTPS for a while now, in order to protect the privacy and identity of their users.

6. Multiple E-mail Addresses

A good rule of thumb for security is never to use a business e-mail to sign in anywhere. Make a separate, private e-mail for your Facebook account and any others, so that in the event of a security breach you don’t lose any important business e-mails. Also, since this “secret” e-mail address will probably contain some password information in certain messages, make sure that you get rid of those messages and keep your passwords elsewhere. Keeping passwords on the cloud is a bad idea, period.

7. Use a VPN

A VPN can provide some serious encryption and privacy for your connection, and hide your true location from people trying to eavesdrop. Even a free VPN will set you up with some decent protection by giving you a new IP address, and a paid one will do even better. VPNs are becoming more and more essential for browsing every day, they’re really easy to use and they truly make a huge difference when it comes to security.

8. Use Tor

If you’re really paranoid about your online privacy, this one is definitely for you. Tor is a secure browser that guarantees complete anonymity by connecting to the Internet through a different proxy every time you restart it, and by default, it disables any cookies or cache that might compromise your security. Note that because Tor puts security first, a lot of essential services are disabled, which means that not all websites are guaranteed to work correctly.

9. Linking Accounts Is A Bad Idea

You’ve probably had the opportunity to log into some third-party website using your Facebook, Google or Twitter account. This is essentially not something you want to do because in the event of a security breach of one of these “parent services”, every account that you’ve linked to the said service becomes potentially vulnerable. It doesn’t take a lot of time to create a new account with a private, anonymous e-mail address, so we advise you to take the extra twenty seconds and do so, lest you put your account in danger later.

10. Smart Security Questions

Security questions are generally used as a backup if you forget your password. It’s also one of the main ways that hackers gain access to your accounts. Since these questions are usually comprised of very basic information about yourself (your first dog’s name, your mother’s maiden name etc.), anyone who knows you even a little bit can potentially answer these questions correctly and gain access to your account. Instead, you should approach security questions as a second password. Don’t answer the question directly, and instead, input some other keyword that you’ll remember.

Conclusion

As you can see, it’s not that hard to secure yourself online, it just takes a bit of thought and a bit of caution. Online security is definitely not a game anymore, and will become more serious as more of our data is being shared and stored online. So be smart while you’re still safe, and you’ll remain safe.

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