For the many organisations and individuals who rely on the internet to conduct business, securing servers againstDDoS attackIt has become a priority. Hong Kong high defence servers, with its unique advantages, stand out in this battle with DDoS attacks, and has become the right choice for many users to guard network security. Next, let's delve into the mystery of Hong Kong's high defence servers to defend against DDoS attacks.
I. DDoS attack resolution
1, the principle of DDoS attack
DDoS, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, the core principle of which is to use a large number of controlled computers (botnets) to send massive requests to the target server, so that the target server's network bandwidth and system resources are rapidly depleted, and thus unable to normally provide services to legitimate users.
Imagine an originally smooth motorway, suddenly flooded with countless vehicles, instantly causing serious congestion, normal traffic can not go forward!This is like a server under a DDoS attack. This is like a server under a DDoS attack, where legitimate requests are drowned in a sea of malicious requests, overwhelming the server and eventually bringing it to a standstill.
Attackers usually control a large number of computers (zombie hosts) through various malicious means, such as spreading malware, exploiting system vulnerabilities, etc., to form a huge botnet. These zombie hosts, under the command of the attacker, collaborate to launch attacks on the target server.
There are various types of attack traffic, includingTCP SYN Flood, andUDP Flood, andICMP Flood etc. TCP SYN Flood attack, for example, the attacker controls the zombie host to send a large number of TCP SYN connection requests to the target server, but does not complete the subsequent connection process, resulting in the server's connection queue is filled, and can no longer accept legitimate users' connection requests.
2, Types and hazards of DDoS attacks
Common Attack Types
Volume - based Attacks: This type of attack mainly sends a large number of packets to the target server to occupy its network bandwidth resources. Commonly, such as the UDP Flood attack, the attacker takes advantage of the connectionless nature of the UDP protocol to send a large number of UDP packets to random ports of the target server, resulting in congestion of the network link and the inability of legitimate traffic to be transmitted normally. According to relevant data, in 2023, traffic-based attacks accounted for 35% of all DDoS attacks.
Protocol Attacks (Protocol Attacks): These attacks target weaknesses in network protocols and are designed to drain resources from the target server or disrupt its normal operation. For example, the TCP SYN Flood attack exhausts the server's connection resources through a large number of forged SYN requests. In some cases of attacks against e-commerce websites, attackers used TCP SYN Flood attack to make the website unable to process user orders normally during promotional activities, which brought huge economic losses to merchants.
Application - layer Attacks: This attack focuses on the application level by sending a large number of seemingly legitimate requests to the target server, consuming the server's application layer resources, such as CPU, memory, etc. A common example is the HTTP Flood attack, in which the attacker floods the target website with a large number of HTTP requests, resulting in a slow response or even inaccessibility of the website. In the case of a well-known online gaming platform, for example, players were unable to log in to the game during an HTTP Flood attack, and the game operator not only faced the risk of losing users, but also could be held legally liable for breach of contract.
threaten
Business interruption: Once a server is paralysed by a DDoS attack, an enterprise's online business will be interrupted. For e-commerce enterprises, this means that transactions cannot be carried out and orders are lost; for online gaming platforms, players cannot play normally and the user experience drops sharply, which may lead to a large number of users lost. According to statistics, a serious DDoS attack may cause enterprises to lose millions or even tens of millions of yuan of revenue per hour.
Reputational damage: Frequent DDoS attacks can cause users to question the stability of an organisation's services, which can damage its reputation. Users may choose to switch to a competitor's service, which is extremely detrimental to the long-term development of the enterprise. For example, a social media platform suffered multiple DDoS attacks and user information was leaked, leading to a significant drop in user trust and a decrease in market share.
High cost of recovery: After an attack, enterprises need to invest a lot of manpower, material and financial resources to restore the normal operation of their servers, including repairing the damaged systems, restoring data, upgrading security measures, etc. These costs are often very considerable, and for some small and medium-sized enterprises, it may even be a fatal blow.
Second, the unique advantages of Hong Kong high defence servers
(i) Excellent network bandwidth resources
As an important international network hub, Hong Kong has extremely rich network bandwidth resources. Many international network operators converge here, making Hong Kong high defence servers can easily access a number of high-quality international network lines.
This means that the server is more resistant to traffic impact in the face of DDoS attacks. For example, some Hong Kong high security server data centres are equipped with up to T-level network export bandwidth, which can still keep the network smooth in the event of large-scale traffic-type DDoS attacks, to ensure that legitimate user requests can be processed in a timely manner.
In contrast, some servers in other regions may be crippled in the face of smaller attacks due to limited network bandwidth.
(ii) Advanced hardware protection facilities
High-defence server data centres in Hong Kong are usually equipped with advanced hardware protection devices, such as professional DDoS hardware firewalls. These firewalls use advanced traffic detection and filtering technologies to monitor network traffic in real-time, accurately identify malicious traffic and block it from the server.
For example, some high-end DDoS hardware firewalls have the ability to process millions of packets per second, and can instantly analyse and filter massive amounts of attack traffic. At the same time, these hardware firewalls also support a variety of protection policies, which can be flexibly adjusted according to different types of attacks, greatly improving the effectiveness of server protection.
(iii) Efficient network node layout
Hong Kong is strategically located in the heart of Asia, and the data centres of its high-definition servers have a reasonable layout of network nodes around the world. This layout enables the servers to respond quickly to user requests and reduce network latency.
When users access websites or applications located on Hong Kong high defence servers, data can be transmitted through the nearest network node, greatly improving access speed and user experience. At the same time, in the face of DDoS attacks, distributed network nodes can work together to spread the attack traffic to each node for processing, reducing the pressure on individual nodes and enhancing the overall defence capability of the server.
For example, a multinational enterprise deploys its business on a Hong Kong high defence server, users around the world are able to access its services quickly, and in the event of a DDoS attack, the server is able to quickly switch to a standby node to ensure business continuity.
Third, Hong Kong high security servers to defend against DDoS attacks technical means
(i) Flow-cleaning techniques
theory
Traffic cleaning technology is one of the core technologies used by Hong Kong high security servers to defend against DDoS attacks. Its principle is to monitor and analyse the network traffic entering the server in real time through specific equipment or systems.
Once anomalous traffic (i.e. attack traffic) is detected, it is diverted to a specialised cleaning appliance. In the cleaning appliance, the traffic is cleaned through a series of filtering rules and algorithms, removing the malicious part of it and sending only legitimate traffic back to the server.
For example, when a large amount of UDP Flood attack traffic is detected, the cleansing device identifies and filters out the attack packets based on the characteristics of the UDP protocol and the patterns of normal traffic, ensuring that only legitimate UDP traffic reaches the server.
Common Traffic Cleaning Methods
Feature-based traffic cleaning: This approach works by predefining the characteristics of the attack traffic, such as specific IP addresses, port numbers, packet formats, etc. When traffic that matches these characteristics is monitored, it is determined to be attack traffic and cleaned.
For example, if a DDoS attack is known to send a large number of packets using a specific range of source IP addresses, a feature-based traffic cleaning system will focus on detecting and filtering traffic from that IP address range.
Behaviour-based traffic cleansing: This approach focuses on the behavioural patterns of the traffic and determines whether it is normal traffic by analysing the rate, number of connections, frequency of requests and other behavioural characteristics of the traffic.
If it is found that an IP address sends a large number of connection requests in a short period of time, which is far beyond the normal range, it will be regarded as an attack and the related traffic will be cleaned. Behaviour-based traffic cleaning can effectively counter some new types of DDoS attacks that are difficult to identify by their characteristics.
Cloud Cleaning Services: With the development of cloud computing technology, cloud cleaning service has gradually become a popular way of traffic cleaning. Cloud cleaning service providers have huge distributed cleaning nodes and powerful computing resources, which can monitor and clean large-scale DDoS attack traffic in real time. Some high defence server providers in Hong Kong cooperate with professional cloud cleaning service platforms to provide users with more efficient and reliable traffic cleaning services.
When a user's server suffers a DDoS attack, the attack traffic is automatically diverted to the cloud cleaning platform for processing, and the cleaned legitimate traffic is then returned to the user's server.
This approach has the advantages of high resilience and scalability, and is able to cope with DDoS attacks of various sizes.
(ii) Load-balancing techniques
theory
The core of load balancing technology is to evenly distribute a large number of user requests to multiple server nodes for processing, avoiding performance degradation or even paralysis of a single server due to overload.
existHong Kong High Defence ServersLoad balancing techniques are widely used to defend against DDoS attacks. When a server cluster receives a user request, the load balancer assigns the request to different server nodes based on preset algorithms such as polling algorithm, weighted polling algorithm, least-connection algorithm, etc.
At the same time, the load balancer will also monitor the status of each server node in real time, and when a node is found to be faulty or overloaded, it will automatically assign requests to other normal nodes to ensure the stable operation of the entire server cluster.
Role in DDoS Defence
Distribute attack trafficLoad Balancer: In the event of a DDoS attack, a load balancer can spread the attack traffic across multiple server nodes, reducing the attack pressure on a single node. For example, when a large amount of TCP SYN Flood attack traffic comes in, the load balancer can evenly distribute these attack requests to each server node, avoiding the connection queue of a node from being instantly filled.
In this way, each node only needs to handle a portion of the attack traffic, greatly improving the overall attack resistance of the server cluster.
Improved usability: By monitoring the status of server nodes in real time, the load balancer is able to detect and isolate failed nodes in a timely manner, shifting both user requests and attack traffic to normal nodes. This ensures that servers are still able to provide services to legitimate users in the event of an attack, improving system availability.
For example, when a server node appears to be dead due to an attack, the load balancer immediately removes it from the service list and assigns subsequent requests to other normal nodes to ensure business continuity.
Optimising the use of resourcesLoad Balancer: Load balancer can dynamically adjust the request distribution strategy according to the performance and load of server nodes, so that resources can be more reasonably used. In the face of DDoS attacks, it can allocate the attack traffic to nodes with stronger performance and more abundant resources for processing, avoiding resource wastage and improving the defence efficiency of the entire server cluster.
For example, for some attack traffic that consumes a lot of CPU resources, it can be preferentially assigned to server nodes equipped with high-performance CPUs.
(iii) Black hole routing techniques
theory
Black hole routing technology is a special kind of DDoS defence. When a Hong Kong high security server detects that an IP address or IP segment is launching a large-scale DDoS attack, it will, through cooperation with the network operator, set the route to the source of the attack as a black hole route. Simply put, this means that all network traffic destined for the attack source is sent to a "black hole", i.e. a non-existent network address or device, so that the attack traffic cannot reach the target server.
For example, when the server detects a large amount of attack traffic from a particular botnet, it will notify the network operator to set the routing of the IP address segment of the botnet as a black hole route, so that all subsequent attack traffic is dropped.
vantage: The biggest advantage of black hole routing technology is that it can block attack traffic in a very short time and quickly protect the target server. Once the black hole routing is set up, the attack traffic will be dropped immediately, without the need for complex detection and filtering of each packet, which can effectively deal with large-scale, high-intensity DDoS attacks.
In addition, the implementation of black hole routing technology is relatively simple and does not require too much configuration and operation on the server side, which is mainly done with the co-operation of network operators.
drawbacks: The black hole routing technique also has some limitations. First of all, it is a "brute force" defence method, which will block the attack traffic and at the same time cause the legitimate traffic related to the IP address of the attack source to be unable to access the target server normally. For example, if there are some legitimate users in the network where the attack source IP address is located, these users will not be able to access the target server while the black hole routing is in effect, which may have some impact on normal business.
Secondly, the setup of black hole routing usually requires the support of the network operator, and the effectiveness of the defence may be affected if the operator's response is slow or cooperation is not timely.
Fourth, Hong Kong high defence server selection and configuration strategy
(i) Choosing the right high defence server provider
Reputation and Word of Mouth
Reputation and word-of-mouth are the primary considerations when choosing a Hong Kong high defence server provider. A provider with a good reputation usually excels in terms of service quality, security protection capability and customer support. You can find out about the provider's reputation by checking its user reviews, discussions on industry forums and relevant review reports.
For example, in some well-known IDC industry forums, users will share their experiences of using different high defence server providers, including the evaluation of server stability, defence effect and after-sales service. Choosing providers that are widely recognised and praised by users can greatly reduce the risk of using them.
protection capability
The provider's protection capabilities are key. Be aware of the DDoS protection technology and equipment they have, as well as the size and type of attacks they can defend against. Some providers claim to be able to defend against DDoS attacks up to hundreds of gigabytes (G) or even terabytes (T) in size, but the actual results may not be ideal. Therefore, check to see if the provider has relevant technical certifications and real-world examples of defence.
For example, some providers have specialised DDoS protection labs that can simulate and test various types of attacks and continuously optimise protection techniques. At the same time, learning about their successes in dealing with real-world attacks, such as which organisations have successfully defended themselves against large-scale DDoS attacks, provides a visual assessment of their protection capabilities.
network quality
Quality network quality is the basis for server performance. It is important to examine the provider's network bandwidth resources, network node layout and interconnection with other network operators.
Although Hong Kong is rich in network resources, there are still variations in network quality among different providers. For example, some providers have their own independent network backbone and are able to provide more stable and high-speed network connections; while others may rely on the networks of other operators and may have certain problems in terms of network stability and latency. The quality of a provider's network can be assessed by testing its network latency, bandwidth speed and other indicators.
after-sales service
Good after-sales service can reduce business interruption time by resolving problems with the server in a timely manner. It is important to find out whether the provider offers 24×7 technical support services, as well as its response speed and problem-solving ability. Some providers offer a variety of contact information, such as telephone, e-mail, online customer service, etc., which makes it convenient for users to contact the technicians in time when they encounter problems.
Also, check to see if the provider has a well-developed troubleshooting process and contingency plan to be able to take quick steps to fix the server in the event of an attack or other failure.
(ii) Server configuration based on business requirements
Determine required bandwidth
Determine the required network bandwidth according to the type of business and the expected number of visits. If it is a small personal website, it may only need a smaller bandwidth to meet the normal access demand; however, if it is a large-scale e-commerce platform or online gaming platform with a large number of user accesses and data transfers every day, a larger bandwidth is required to ensure the smoothness of the service.
When considering bandwidth, you should also reserve a certain margin to cope with sudden traffic growth and possible DDoS attacks. For example, an e-commerce platform may see a several-fold surge in visits during promotional activities, at which time, if there is not enough bandwidth, it will easily lead to slow or even paralysed access to the website. The bandwidth required can be reasonably estimated by analysing historical access data and combining it with business development planning.
Choosing the right hardware configuration
The hardware configuration of a server directly affects its performance and processing power. For Hong Kong high defence servers that need to withstand DDoS attacks, choose a powerful processor, sufficient memory and high-speed storage devices.
For example, for servers that handle a large number of network requests, a multi-core, high-frequency CPU can increase the data processing speed; a larger capacity of memory can cache more data, reduce disk I/O operations, and improve the response speed of the system; and the use of high-speed SSD hard drives can accelerate the reading and writing speed of the data and improve the overall performance of the server.
At the same time, according to the characteristics of the business and the load, a reasonable choice of hardware configuration, to avoid over-configuration resulting in a waste of resources, nor can the configuration is too low resulting in insufficient server performance.
Setting up a reasonable security policy
During server configuration, it is vital to set up a sound security policy. This includes switching on firewalls, setting up access control lists (ACLs), and regularly updating system and software patches. A firewall filters network traffic to and from the server, blocking unauthorised access and malicious traffic;
Access control lists can restrict access to a server to specific users or devices based on IP addresses, port numbers, and other conditions;
Regularly updating system and software patches fixes known security vulnerabilities and reduces the risk of attack.
For example, for a server that provides Web services to the outside world, it is necessary to restrict access to ports other than the HTTP and HTTPS ports through a firewall to prevent attackers from using other ports for intrusion. At the same time, it is necessary to update the patches of the Web server software in a timely manner, so as to avoid the use of software vulnerabilities by attackers to launch DDoS attacks.
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