The only way to prevent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks or mitigate them before they harm your system is to have a defense mechanism in place prior to becoming a target of this malicious traffic.
Since DDoS attacks (no matter the type) can be executed for any number of reasons, any network or application (no matter how large or small) can be hit by this type of attack, which if successful, effectively renders a website, network and/or applications inaccessible to real visitors by overwhelming its resources through non-stop requests for data that are disguised as real requests from actual users.
Preventing DDoS attacks is a requirement for service providers because of the need to identify attack patterns quickly and mitigate them immediately, avoiding any interruption/slowdown in the service that could result in lost revenue or security breaches. Effective DDoS mitigation can therefore identify and deny these requests while simultaneously allowing real visitors to connect with your website, applications and other network resources.
However, identifying traffic coming from a DDoS attack can be a difficult task given the many different attack methods available. Attacks are split into two categories. Logic attacks look for vulnerabilities in the network infrastructure and will launch a DDoS attack at a vulnerable aspect of a security solution if it finds one. The other form is a flooding attack, which works by sending an enormous number of packet requests to servers in order to render the victim’s system ineffective.
Radware firmly believes in a proactive approach to DDoS attack prevention. Security measures such as Radware's DefensePro allow organizations to effectively mitigate an attack before slowdowns and crashes cost your organization revenue and other costly setbacks.