In November, 2023, the Danish tech shop Power faced an unforeseen challenge. On Black Friday, one of the most crucial sales days of the year, they experienced a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Read along if you want to learn how to minize the risk of a similar attack happening to your webshop.
In short, a DDoS attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, service, or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of Internet traffic.
Such attacks can severely disrupt a webshop's functionality, hindering customers from placing orders and potentially leading to significant financial losses. Ultimately, this can result in a full breakdown of the webshop being attacked.
However, despite being attacked, Power's story didn't end in despair. Thanks to their robust security measures and transparent communication, they not only overcame the attack but also surpassed their Black Friday sales record. This success story is a testament to the importance of being prepared for cyber threats, especially during peak shopping periods like Black Friday, Christmas, and January sales.
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DDoS attacks overwhelm your website with traffic from multiple sources, making it inaccessible to legitimate users. In a DDoS attack, the attacker uses multiple systems, often infected with malware, to send a high volume of requests to a target's server.
This overwhelms the server, making it difficult or impossible for legitimate users to access the website or service. The attack can come from different types of internet connections and can target various parts of a network connection. |
There’re different measures you can take in order to ensure your web security to avoid attacks and minimize damage if an attack does occur. Here's how you can safeguard your business against DDoS attacks:
Prepare Your Commerce Platform With the Right Security Measures
Preparation is key. Understand the types of attacks and assess your current security infrastructure. Implement robust security procedures and measures to make sure you’re not an easy target. To protect your commerce platform in the best manner, ensure that your webapplication firewall is correctly configured and tested according to the everchanging threat and risk landscape Hackers are becoming more and more skilled in finding ‘soft spots’ so make sure that your organization is updating security measures surrounding your business accordingly.
What to Do When the Situation Arises
In the event of an attack, quick and efficient response is crucial. Have an updated and tested response plan in place, including notifying your security partner, stakeholders, customers and supply chain . Keep communication channels open with your customers, just as Power did, to maintain trust and transparency.
| DDoS attacks can vary in their complexity, scale, and impact. They can be simple, aiming to flood a website with more traffic than it can handle, or more complex, targeting specific aspects of a network to disrupt service. These attacks can have significant consequences for businesses, including loss of revenue, damage to reputation, and costs associated with mitigating the attack and recovering from its effects. |
Understanding different types of attacks is crucial in developing a comprehensive defense strategy. In this blog we’ve focussed on DDoS Attacks, but remember to consult your security partner to safeguard your business in other events.