Mitigating escalating DDoS cyberattacks

Issue 6 2023 Information Security


Bryan Hamman.

As cyberattacks, particularly those of the Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) variety, continue to rise at an unprecedented rate across Africa, it is no longer a question of ‘if’ your organisation will be targeted, but rather ‘when’. As recently as July and August this year, businesses across African countries such as Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa have all suffered the dire consequences of these incidents.

What is a DDoS attack?

A DDoS attack is an attempt to exhaust the resources available to an organisation’s network, systems, applications, content or services by bombarding it with fake traffic, meaning that genuine users cannot gain access. This type of attack is incredibly damaging to any business dependent on the internet to function and, as we have seen in recent weeks across Africa, can affect organisations across every sector – from government to financial services, the media, telecommunications providers and more.

A business’s inability to withstand an attack and effectively and rapidly recover can be detrimental in multiple ways, with aftereffects including loss of revenue due to service downtime, compliance failures, negative impacts on brand reputation and public perception, and increased costs.

DDoS attacks are taking place continuously all over the globe, and so-called ‘bad actors’ are relentlessly improving their attack methods. This means that the ability of an organisation to maintain its availability and resilience in the face of an attack has become more critical than ever before. A vital part of this is understanding the facts, risks and latest trends around them.

Four facts about DDoS attacks

Fact one: Your cybersecurity solution might only cover some types of cyberattacks. Businesses may well have viruses and malware attacks covered but, as a type of attack that aims to overwhelm networks or servers with fake traffic, they must ask the question: “Do we have the right defences in place for something more sophisticated, like DDoS, that may not be classed as a ‘typical’ cyberattack?”

Fact two: Today’s DDoS attacks are becoming increasingly complex. At present, there are three main types of DDoS attacks:

• Volumetric attacks – designed to flood internet-facing circuits with illegitimate traffic, which might be easy to detect when larger. However, most volumetric attacks are under one gigabit per second in size and last for only a few minutes.

• State Exhaustion attacks aim to fill state tables in stateful devices, such as firewalls, VPN concentrators or load balancers, with illegitimate TCP connections. When these state tables fill, legitimate connects cease, and the services behind these devices are no longer available – thus denying service.

• Application Layer attacks are much smaller sized, very hard to detect, and will slowly exhaust resources in application servers. When these application layer resources are exhausted, the application stops.

Fact three: ISPs will not be able to stop all DDoS attacks. An internet service provider (ISP) may be able to bring a larger volumetric attack to a halt, but it is unlikely it will be able to detect those that are smaller and short-lived. The ISP will also probably struggle to identify State Exhaustion and Application Layer attacks before the damage is done.

Fact four: Having a firewall in place is not enough. There are several reasons why an organisation should not rely on firewalls alone. For instance, they offer only rudimentary DDoS attack protection, which impacts the performance of more important functionality. A firewall will also not provide detailed visibility into dropped DDoS attack traffic and cannot intelligently communicate with a cloud-based scrubber solution for mitigating large DDoS attacks.

Change and adapt… or suffer the consequences

Organisations need to constantly refine their cyber defence strategies to ensure that they can stop most attacks. Threat actors are persistently adapting their tactics, and as they cleverly up their game of attack, so must smart defenders improve their defence positioning.

For African organisations of all sizes and across every sector, learning how to choose the right approach and solution for adaptive DDoS protection – one that meets your unique needs, aligns with the realities of modern attacks, and is built on industry best practices and sophisticated solutions – is critical to ensure continued survival within the eye of the DDoS storm.

NETSCOUT helps customers worldwide defend themselves and mitigate the risk from DDoS attacks. For more information, please visit https://www.netscout.com/arbor




Share this article:
Share via emailShare via LinkedInPrint this page



Further reading:

Highest increase in global cyberattacks in two years
Information Security News & Events
Check Point Global Research released new data on Q2 2024 cyber-attack trends, noting a 30% global increase in Q2 2024, with Africa experiencing the highest average weekly per organisation.

Read more...
Upgrade your PCs to improve security
Information Security Infrastructure
Truly secure technology today must be designed to detect and address unusual activity as it happens, wherever it happens, right down to the BIOS and silicon levels.

Read more...
Open source code can also be open risk
Information Security Infrastructure
Software development has changed significantly over the years, and today, open-source code increasingly forms the foundation of modern applications, with surveys indicating that 60 – 90% of the average application's code base consists of open-source components.

Read more...
DeepSneak deception
Information Security News & Events
Kaspersky Global Research & Analysis researchers have discovered a new malicious campaign which is distributing a Trojan through a fake DeepSeek-R1 Large Language Model (LLM) app for PCs.

Read more...
SA’s strained, loadshedding-prone grid faces cyberthreats
Power Management Information Security
South Africa’s energy sector, already battered by decades of underinvestment and loadshedding, faces another escalating crisis; a wave of cyberthreats that could turn disruptions into catastrophic failures. Attacks are already happening internationally.

Read more...
Almost 50% of companies choose to pay the ransom
News & Events Information Security
This year’s Sophos State of Ransomware 2025 report found that nearly 50% of companies paid the ransom to get their data back, the second-highest rate of ransom payment for ransom demands in six years.

Read more...
Survey highlights cost of cyberdamage to industrial companies
Kaspersky Information Security News & Events
The majority of industrial organisations estimate their financial losses caused by cyberattacks to be over $1 million, while almost one in four report losses exceeding $5 million, and for some, it surpasses $10 million.

Read more...
Digital economy needs an agile approach to cybersecurity
Information Security News & Events
South Africa is the most targeted country in Africa when it comes to infostealer and ransomware attacks. Being at the forefront of the continent’s digital transformation puts South Africa in the crosshairs for sophisticated cyberattacks

Read more...
SIEM rule threat coverage validation
Information Security News & Events
New AI-detection engineering assistant from Cymulate automates SIEM rule validation for SecOps and blue teams by streamlining threat detection engineering with automated testing, control integrations and enhanced detections.

Read more...
Cybersecurity a challenge in digitalising OT
Kaspersky Information Security Industrial (Industry)
According to a study by Kaspersky and VDC Research on securing operational technology environments, the primary risks are inadequate security measures, insufficient resources allocated to OT cybersecurity, challenges surrounding regulatory compliance, and the complexities of IT/OT integration.

Read more...










While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained herein, the publisher and its agents cannot be held responsible for any errors contained, or any loss incurred as a result. Articles published do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers. The editor reserves the right to alter or cut copy. Articles submitted are deemed to have been cleared for publication. Advertisements and company contact details are published as provided by the advertiser. Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd cannot be held responsible for the accuracy or veracity of supplied material.




© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd. | All Rights Reserved.