DDoS Attacks Explained: How We Keep Your Site Protected

DDoS attacks have become one of the most common threats facing websites of all sizes — from small blogs to major enterprises. Understanding what they are and how they're mitigated can help you appreciate why infrastructure-level protection matters.

What Is a DDoS Attack?

DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. The attack works by flooding a target server with so many requests that it becomes overwhelmed and unable to respond to legitimate visitors. The "distributed" part refers to the fact that these requests come from thousands or millions of different IP addresses simultaneously — making it impossible to simply block a single source.

The traffic is typically generated by a botnet: a network of compromised computers and IoT devices that have been infected with malware and are controlled remotely by the attacker. The device owners usually have no idea their machine is being used.

Types of DDoS Attacks

Volumetric attacks overwhelm the server's bandwidth with sheer volume of traffic. These are measured in gigabits per second (Gbps) and can reach hundreds of Gbps in large attacks.

Protocol attacks exploit weaknesses in network protocols like TCP and ICMP to consume server resources. SYN floods are a common example.

Application layer attacks (Layer 7) send seemingly legitimate HTTP requests targeting specific application functions. These are harder to detect because the individual requests look normal.

Who Gets Attacked?

Anyone can be a target. Common motivations include competitive sabotage (knocking a competitor offline during a busy period), extortion (pay us or we keep attacking), political activism, or simply demonstrating capability. Small businesses are increasingly targeted because they often have weaker defences than large enterprises.

How Nexlara Protects You

DDoS protection operates at multiple layers of our infrastructure:

Network-level filtering — Malicious traffic is identified and dropped at the network edge before it reaches your server. Our upstream providers have massive scrubbing capacity to handle large-scale volumetric attacks.

Rate limiting — Unusual request patterns are automatically detected and throttled. If a single IP or range suddenly sends thousands of requests per second, they are rate-limited or blocked.

LiteSpeed's built-in protection — Our LiteSpeed web server includes connection throttling and anti-DDoS features that handle application-layer attacks specifically.

CDN and Cloudflare compatibility — Placing Cloudflare in front of your site adds an additional layer of DDoS mitigation, including the ability to enable "Under Attack Mode" during active incidents.

What You Can Do

While infrastructure-level protection handles most threats, there are additional steps you can take: enable Cloudflare on your domain (free tier provides substantial DDoS protection), keep your CMS and plugins updated to avoid application vulnerabilities, and contact our support team immediately if you notice unusual traffic patterns or downtime.