Frequently Asked Questions

What is a DDoS Attack?

A DDoS attack is an attempt to make a computer resource (i.e. web site, e-mail, voice, or a whole network) unavailable to its intended users.

How does a DDoS attack bring down a web site?

By overwhelming a web site and/or server with data and/or requests, the target system either responds so slowly as to be unusable or crashes completely. The data volumes required to do this are typically achieved by botnets, which is a network of remotely controlled infected machines known as “zombies”.

Who controls these botnets and how many are there?

Botnets have fallen under the control of an attacker, generally through the use of Trojan viruses. Prolexic currently tracks over 4,000 command and control servers, which manipulate these botnets for attacks, and we track over 10 million bots in our global IP reputational database. Some experts estimate that one quarter of Internet connected computers are botnets.

Should I be worried?

Because Internet-facing infrastructures are critical to the profitability of most organizations, the impact of a DDoS attack can be catastrophic and widespread – affecting your ability to communicate, process transactions or function effectively for hours or even days. On average there are more than 7,000 DDoS attacks observed daily – a number which is growing rapidly.

If my site goes down, how much revenue could I lose?

It all depends.  If your site is primarily to provide information, financial loss may be minimal.  On the other hand, if your site is an e-Commerce engine that drives revenues it could be significant.  For example, industry analyst firms estimate the cost of a 24-hour outage for a large e-Commerce company can approach US$30 million.¹

Would anyone really want to attack our company?

Some targets are obvious: online gambling sites, financial services firms, and payment processors, for example.  But we are learning that any company or web site could be a target.  In the cyber underworld, it is possible to rent 80,000 – 120,000 hosts capable of launching DDoS attacks of 10-100Gbps – more than enough to take out practically any popular site on the Internet for just US$200 per 24 hours.

What if I already have a provider of DDoS mitigation services?

Many network or Internet-related service providers offer DDoS mitigation capabilities and you may be using those already.  However, most of these firms rely primarily on automated tools and they have limited network capacity to absorb large attacks.  That’s why many companies eventually find their way to Prolexic.  With the largest mitigation network, proprietary tools, and skilled technicians that can react in real-time to changing attack characteristics, we can overcome any attack.  That’s why DDoS attacks end here.

What is a Layer 7 DDoS attack?

Lately, more and more hackers have been adding complex Layer 7 attacks that resemble legitimate traffic to their DDoS attempts.  In 2010, 40% of attacks mitigated by Prolexic included at least one Layer 7 component. Unlike more common regular bandwidth floods, Layer 7 attacks can be structured to overload specific elements of an application server infrastructure.  Even simple attacks – for example those targeting login pages with random user IDs and passwords, or repetitive random “searches” on dynamic web sites – can critically overload CPUs and databases. Prolexic is the only provider able to mitigate and clean SSL post and GET Flood attacks.

How quickly can Prolexic get our site back up?

Depending on attack type, typical mitigation time is just 5-20 minutes after traffic starts flowing through Prolexic’s scrubbing centers.

How do I get more information on Prolexic’s services?

If you’d like more details on our cloud-based DDoS mitigation and monitoring services, please complete this form.

Got more questions?  Learn more about Prolexic by reading our corporate brochure.