Top 10 Distributed Denial Of Service (DDoS) Defense Solutions

Akamai, a leader in DDoS protection, offers comprehensive DDoS defense through its flagship solution, Prolexic. Prolexic is a purpose-built solution that stops malicious traffic, including DDoS attacks, before it can reach an organization’s applications, data centers, and internet-facing infrastructure (public or private). While it can be deployed standalone, Prolexic is often configured with two additional purpose-built solutions—Akamai App & API Protector and Akamai Edge DNS. This combination aims to keep web and internet-facing assets available and protected.

Akamai Prolexic provides cloud-delivered mitigation across all ports and protocols to stop DDoS attacks before they impact businesses. This includes a cloud-based network firewall designed to provide central access control at the edge of the corporate network, and traffic re-routing via a border gateway protocol route advertisement change or DNS redirection. With 32 global high-capacity scrubbing centers in metro locations, Prolexic can stop attacks closer to their source while maintaining network resiliency. Prolexic routes traffic via Anycast through the closest scrubbing center, where Akamai’s Security Operations Command Center (SOCC) deploys proactive or custom controls to ensure fast and accurate mitigation of DDoS attacks. Clean traffic is then returned to the organization.

Prolexic offers flexible integration models through always-on or on-demand services based on desired security posture across hybrid origins. In addition to the DDoS protection technology itself, Prolexic offers optional managed SOC services and 24/7/365 support, making it well-suited and accessible to any organization looking for a way to protect their web servers against DDoS attacks.

Amazon Web Service’s (AWSs) answer to DDoS protection comes in the form of AWS Shield, a managed platform that provides comprehensive defense against network, transport, and application-layer attacks. The service provides two tiers of support for customers of AWS: Standard and Advanced.

The standard DDoS package provides protection against network and transport layer attacks, and can be combined with Amazon Cloudfront and Amazon Route 53 for a fully comprehensive DDoS solution. One of the key features of this solution is the ease and quantity of integrations. Due to its exclusivity with AWS, Shield operates by default for AWS customers, with add-ons accessible through the management console or via API. The service is always-on, monitoring traffic flow into AWS services using filters and anomaly detectors that analyze traffic signatures. There are also automated mitigation systems, such as deterministic packet filtering and priority-based traffic shaping which help to nullify basic network layer attacks. All of these features are applied in line with the existing AWS services, which means there’s no impact on latency.

Shield Advanced builds on the standard package by enabling admins to implement custom firewall policies through the web-application firewall (WAF) to defend against business-specific threats. The firewall can also be configured to run proactive rules such as rate-base blocks to nullify an early-stage DDoS attack. The system can be tailored to either act or react to incoming threats, so it can outright block traffic and hunt for threats, or deal with them as they hit. Its health-based detection can be configured through the API to prioritize the response to unhealthy/vulnerable applications first. Advanced users can also utilize the Shield Response Team (SRT), whereby the team can contact your organization in the event of a DDoS attack, helping to identify stop the threat. Centralized management is also a key feature of Shield Advanced, where admins can manage both Shield and the WAF across the organization in one place, quickly and efficiently implementing universal policies and defenses.

Cloudflare is a market leader in comprehensive DDoS protection, offering defense against network, transport, and application-layer attacks. The solution is scalable to your business and provides many add-ons to help tailor the service to best suit your use case.

Cloudflare DDoS Protection protects against network and transport-layer attacks such as DDoS Amplification, SYN (half-open attacks) flooding, IPN flooding through the use of their patented Anycast network, which can handle over 37 Tbps, allowing websites to withstand even the largest of DDoS attacks. This defense is channelled through Cloudflare’s Edge Data centers, where initial HTTP requests are reviewed and filtered to see whether the visitor could be malicious. Cloudflare filters visitors according to criteria including user agents, paths, HTTP methods, and Transport Layer Security (TLS) checkers.

Cloudflare’s response to application-layer attacks come in the form of a Web Application Firewall (WAF), which utilizes pre-existing policies to block and filter incoming requests, as well as embracing custom policies too. This means that the solution can be tailored to suit your specific business traffic and needs. The Rate Limiting add-on complements the original defense by offering protection against application-layer attacks, such as brute-force password attempts. This tool uses request thresholds, CAPTCHAS, response codes, and other mitigation responses to manage traffic access. The solution also offers analytical capabilities with Cloudflare’s automatic learning platform. Incoming network traffic is analyzed in real-time, which contributes to the over 1 billion unique IP addresses that pass through Cloudflare’s network every day. With each new IP address, their threat intelligence systems are updated to protect against the latest threats that pose danger to your website or application.

Customers have praised the simple configuration and comprehensive feature set of Cloudflare’s solution. Overall, we would recommend Cloudflare DDoS Protection for businesses of all sizes to stop DDoS attacks in their tracks.

F5 Distributed Cloud DDoS Mitigation Service is a managed, cloud-delivered solution designed to protect networks and applications from Layer 3 to Layer 7 DDoS attacks. The Service aims to maintain business continuity by stopping attacks before they impact network operations and applications. It assists in increasing operational efficiency through the reduced manual response time to attacks and is supported by F5 security experts.

The centralized console of F5’s DDoS protection solution provides rich threat insights, transparent attack mitigation visibility, and reporting on events that take place before, during, and after an attack. This helps organizations gain better situational awareness, making it easier for them to identify the warning signs of an attack so they can detect future attacks more swiftly. It also reduces operating costs by mitigating unwanted and malicious traffic at the edge of the network. F5 Distributed Cloud DDoS Mitigation Service offers protection against volumetric Layer 3-4 DDoS attacks, application layer 7 attacks, and DNS attacks.

F5 offers broad platform and cloud provider support, allowing Distributed Cloud Services to be delivered to applications running on any platform or public/private cloud. It supports multiple service discovery protocols simultaneously and integrates with service mesh solutions such as Istio or Linkerd. Additionally, automation, alerting, and SIEM integration with tools like Terraform, Opsgenie, Slack, Splunk, and Datadog simplify operations for both the DevOps and SecOps teams. Overall, we recommend F5’s Distributed Cloud DDoS Mitigation Service as a strong solution for organizations looking for a managed DDoS protection solution that will block attacks and help reduce strain on their in-house security resources.

Fastly DDoS Mitigation is a comprehensive solution that protects businesses from both Layer 3/4 and Layer 7 DDoS attacks. With its multi-terabit-per-second network capacity, Fastly can absorb large-scale DDoS attacks, while providing real-time response capabilities. This enables businesses to maintain uptime and defend their digital infrastructure from disruptive threats.

Fastly inspects all bidirectional traffic, providing comprehensive protection from network and application layer attacks. With Fastly DDoS Mitigation, organizations can configure custom DDoS rules with Varnish Configuration Language (VCL) that enables them to serve specific clients from cache in the event of an attack. With full access to HTTP requests, admins can use VCL to create rules based on any attribute of a request or response. The solution also offers real-time access to data logs, enabling admins to draw upon historical events such as traffic spikes to enable faster troubleshooting. Fastly also provides a range of automated DDoS mitigation features, including custom DDoS filters, rate limiting, and the ability to stop reflection and amplification attacks like ping floods and ICMP floods. It also picks up responses from the Fastly next-gen web application firewall, enabling further options for blocking or restricting clients as needed.

In addition to the solution’s technical features, Fastly offers 24/7 support from their dedicated security team. The platform integrates seamlessly with Fastly’s edge cloud network for optimal performance, and most of its configurations can be completed via API, making it relatively straightforward to deploy and integrate. Overall, we recommend Fastly DDoS Mitigation as a strong solution for organizations that want to protect their servers against disruptive Layer 3, Layer 4, and Layer 7 DDoS attacks.

Imperva DDoS Protection provides four-way defenses to protect against DDoS attacks on all fronts. Imperva DDoS protection utilizes Imperva’s high-capacity global network, with a capacity of over 6 Tbps scrubbing meaning that it can cleanse more than 65 billion attack packets per second. As your web traffic is guided through the Imperva global network, the AI behavioral learning utilizes these centers to process each new attack—helping to both prepare for new waves and track new attack patterns to keep the system up-to-date.

The platform features advanced algorithms which combat intricate application-layer attacks, whilst legitimate users of the service remain unaffected via an integrated content delivery network (CDN). Imperva DDoS Protection analyzes real-time inbound attacks, plotting each into a manageable attack timeline for admins to review. The dashboard feature allows admins to review intelligence, making suitable adjustments to policy changes in real-time to manage and control security posture. Imperva guarantees to stop any size, duration, and type of DDoS attack in three seconds or less.

Imperva’s global network can process the largest volume-based attacks, such as SYN floods and DNS amplification, but the DDoS protection platform also has the capability to stop high-level HTTP application-layer attacks with minimal impact on legitimate users. Imperva’s suite also offers web-facing solutions, including WAF, bot protection, DDoS attack mitigation, account takeover prevention, and API security. This allows the service to be scaled to your business’ needs and security requirements.

You can find out more about Imperva and their data protection solutions in our interview with Terry Ray, SVP and technology fellow at Imperva.

Microsoft Azure DDoS Protection provides comprehensive protection against network, transport, and application-layer attacks. The solution offers immediate, always-on traffic monitoring and protection from the moment that the solution is installed. The adaptive AI learns traffic patterns specific to your business in order to identify anomalies and to update the service at the most appropriate time.

Azure DDoS Protection also includes a web application firewall, which defends against both network and application-layer attacks. Admins can receive analytics of these attacks and their mitigations through Microsoft Azure Sentinel, or an offline Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system, whereby detailed reports can be delivered every five minutes during the attack—followed by a comprehensive summary report at the end. Users can also access the DDoS Protection Rapid Response (DRR) team, who can intervene and help diagnose and investigate attacks. The platform also offers cost-guarantee measures, which can be implemented to help recover the costs of DDoS attacks.

Microsoft Azure offers a very flexible payment plan, where businesses can choose the specific add-ons that they require in order to defend their services effectively. And because it’s a Microsoft service, regulatory compliance measures are fully covered through the API, and implementation into existing systems is simple.

Netscout’s Arbor DDoS Protection platform combines Arbor Sightline, Arbor Threat Mitigation System (TMS), and the Arbor Cloud to provide full protection against transport, network, and application-layer attacks.

For larger networks, Arbor Sightline and Arbor TMS provide on-premises protection, providing clear network visibility and DDoS threat detection, with a capacity of 400 Gbps. The Sightline platform detects threats and can automatically drive traffic to the TMS, whereby the threat is analyzed and mitigated. Smaller networks may see Arbor Edge Defensive (AED) as a more effective defense for their business. AED is an in-line, always-on DDoS detection platform which finds and mitigates inbound attacks, with sub 100Mbps to 40 Gbps capacity. When a larger attack is detected, the platform signals to Arbor Cloud, which is where Arbor’s scrubbing centers are used.

Arbor Cloud provides a fully managed DDoS protection service that uses 14 scrubbing centers through the US, Europe, and Asia to provide global coverage. Organizations can seamlessly integrate their on-premises AED, Sightline, and TMS defenses to allow for automatic threat signalling and mitigation, or for extra mitigation capacity. With Arbor Cloud, admins can outsource DDoS management via the on-premises Sightline and TMS platform, allowing your business to keep on running whilst the attack is happening.

Customers have praised the fast response and support the service has to offer, as well as its user-friendly interface and easy deployment. We would recommend Arbor for businesses of all sizes, from SMB to enterprise.

Nexusguard’s 360 DDoS Protection platform is designed to defend various aspects of a business’s online presence, including websites, applications, infrastructure, backends, and DNS servers. The solution provides comprehensive security services such as application protection, a web application firewall, origin protection, InfraProtect, and DNS protection, each of which offers user-friendly and flexible configurations. By combining these tools, Nexusguard aims to ensure comprehensive data security whilst complying with restrictive local data management policies.

With Nexusguard Portal, a traffic visibility, management and reporting system, businesses have granular control and insight into their network traffic. The platform’s mitigation platform uses machine learning and AI to detect threats and automatically initiate appropriate responses. This ensures online applications remain protected from bot scanning. Utilizing a global scrubbing network, Nexusguard’s 360 DDoS Protection is able to manage both international and in-country attack traffic, minimizing latency and maintaining a positive user experience. Their 24×7 Security Operations Center (SOC) is staffed by multilingual security experts providing constant monitoring and support. This comprehensive mitigation mechanism enables businesses to keep services running during an attack while allowing IT teams to focus on core tasks.

Nexusguard’s DDoS protection solutions are cost-effective and come with flexible deployment options, such as cloud-in-a-box, pure-cloud, and hybrid solutions. This eliminates concerns about product lifecycle expenses and heavy capital expenditure, whilst giving organizations the flexibility to deploy the solutions within any environment. Overall, we recommend Nexusguard’s 360 DDoS Protection platform as a strong solution for any organization looking to block DDoS attacks.

Radware DefensePro X is an advanced, all-in-one DDoS defense platform that spans across original data centers and the public cloud.

DefensePro X offers automated mitigation techniques against a range of threats including high-volume, encrypted, Internet of Things (IoT) based attacks, ransom, and permanent denial-of-service attacks. The platform uses dedicated hardware to help mitigate incoming attacks without affecting non-malicious traffic. The system also utilizes Radware’s patented machine learning technology that detects incoming threats quickly, with each threat coordinating patterns to help block future threats and reducing the potential for false positives. DefensePro X features real-time signature creation technology, enabling instant and automatic defense from zero-day and unknown attacks, with mitigation in 18 seconds or less. DefensePro X has a built-in SSL attack mitigation tool, protecting against attacks on encrypted traffic. With the platform providing the service of its 13-scrubbing center network of 5Tbps capacity, users are protected from simultaneous attacks, reducing down time to a minimum.

There are also the options for Radware’s Emergency Response Team (ERT) to manage the on-premises devices, which includes set-up by security experts, who tailor the devices to your business’ policies and practices. DefensePro X can be implemented inline or out-of-path (OOP) in a scrubbing center, allowing for most effective and efficient mitigation accuracy. Customers have praised DefensPro X’s scalability, with the options for on-premises, hybrid, or full cloud implementation, with fast and dedicated response teams ready for callouts.