DDoS: Types and How to Mitigate Website Attacks

Cloudmatika / March 26, 2026

Have you ever experienced a situation where your website server went down for no apparent reason? It’s possible your website was hit by a DDoS attack. This can be extremely damaging, especially if your website is handling a large volume of customer transactions. But do you know what a DDoS attack is and how to prevent it?

Let’s learn more about DDoS attacks so you can be better prepared to deal with this type of cyberattack.

What Is a DDoS Attack?

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a type of cyberattack targeting websites. A DDoS attack is characterized by a massive amount of fake traffic flooding a server, system, or internet network. As a result, the targeted website becomes inaccessible because it cannot handle the excessive amount of traffic flooding its server.

Hackers launch DDoS attacks by controlling a large number of host computers. They need many computers to flood the target website’s server with enough traffic to cause it to overload. Hackers target not only websites but also online applications and services, causing them to go down and become inaccessible to visitors.

There are many types of DDoS attacks. However, hackers most commonly use the following three types:

UDP Flood: The User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is a protocol that works by randomly flooding a remote port. The server becomes paralyzed when the server host can no longer manage the excessive port load.
ICMP Flood: This attack works by flooding the server with ICMP requests. The primary goal is to exhaust the server’s bandwidth until the website goes down and becomes inaccessible.
SYN Flood: This technique is similar to the ICMP flood, but it uses SYN packets instead. The attack sends a large number of SYN requests to the server at a rapid pace. Eventually, traffic becomes so heavy that the website becomes inaccessible.

In Indonesia, DDoS attacks have been on the rise throughout the second quarter of 2022. The average attack duration reached 3,000 minutes—or two days—which is 100 times longer than the previous year. This increase in incidents is deeply concerning for the Indonesian business community, as many companies have begun serving customers online via their websites.

What Is the Difference Between DoS and DDoS?

In addition to DDoS, you need to be aware of DoS as another type of cyberattack. The techniques behind DoS and DDoS are essentially the same—flooding a server with fake traffic. However, there are differences between the two.

A DoS attacker only needs a single computer and an internet connection. As a result, DoS attacks are easier to launch without incurring significant costs. Meanwhile, DDoS attackers utilize a vast, globally distributed network of computers. They also require a large amount of internet bandwidth to direct the attack toward the target server.

Another difference lies in the ability to block the attacks. The source of a DoS attack is still easy for the server host to block because abnormal traffic spikes are easily identifiable. DDoS attacks are more difficult to block because the traffic requests originate from many different sources.

Why Should You Be Wary of DDoS Attacks?

Securing your website and preventing DDoS attacks from compromising it requires dedicated resources. Why should you do this?

To answer that, you need to understand the losses your company will incur—both financially and in terms of reputation—as outlined below:

1. Maintaining the Customer Experience

When customers find that your website takes a very long time to load—or doesn’t load at all—it’s not unlikely that they’ll immediately switch to a competitor. With the internet, it’s very easy for customers to find your competitors and do business with them instead of you.

2. Reputation in the Eyes of Customers

How will customers or potential customers feel when they learn that your website is down due to a DDoS attack? Naturally, they will feel concerned and have a strong reason not to do business with you anymore, as they’ll feel their information isn’t safe with your company.

3. Financial Losses

So, what happens when customers no longer want to do business with you? The next thing that happens, of course, is a decline in sales. A decline in sales will have a major impact on your business, ranging from the inability to retain assets and talent to potential bankruptcy.

Your company will not only lose money from reduced transactions but also from the costs of repairing the damage caused by a DDoS attack. In addition to the financial cost, this will also be time-consuming, as your system may be completely paralyzed during the repair process.

How Do DDoS Attacks Target Websites?

Hackers employ various methods for DDoS attacks depending on the technique used. There are three DDoS attack techniques that hackers use to flood a server or computer network with traffic.

1. Request Flooding

This attack technique involves sending an excessive number of requests to flood the network. Registered users of a website cannot access it due to the high volume of incoming requests.

2. Traffic Flooding

This technique involves sending large amounts of data to flood internet network traffic. Other users—whether registered or not—cannot access the website targeted by the traffic flooding.

3. System Configuration Alteration

This attack technique is still rarely used by hackers because it is more difficult to execute. It involves altering server settings or damaging components within the website, rendering it inaccessible.

Regardless of the technique used, a DDoS attack aims to exhaust the target website’s bandwidth.

What Are the Signs That Your Website Is Under a DDoS Attack?

DDoS attacks typically occur suddenly. However, you can still identify a website under attack by its characteristic symptoms. There are three signs that a website is under a DDoS attack:

1. Excessive Bandwidth Consumption

An internet network receiving too many requests or too much traffic requires more bandwidth. As a result of a DDoS attack, both upload and download bandwidth consumption spike dramatically. Therefore, you need to monitor bandwidth usage to stay vigilant and take immediate preventive measures.

2. High CPU Load

Not only does bandwidth usage increase, but CPU load also rises even though no processes are running. As a result, you cannot identify which system processes are using the CPU. Website performance also declines, making it inaccessible to users.

3. Decreased Website Speed

A DDoS attack causes website speed to decrease even though there is no significant increase in traffic. A slow website is certainly a problem in itself because your customers expect smooth, uninterrupted access to your site.

How Can You Prevent DDoS Attacks on Your Website?

DDoS attacks must be prevented as early as possible if you don’t want to lose customers. These cyberattacks have a major impact on websites, including a drop in SEO rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). In fact, search engine algorithms will not place insecure websites on the first page to ensure a comfortable browsing experience for users.

So, what steps can you take to prevent DDoS attacks? Implement the five methods below.

1. Monitor Traffic Regularly

Start by reviewing your website’s traffic data. Study the traffic patterns to get an overview of general website traffic trends. You can identify a DDoS attack if there’s a suspicious spike in traffic.

2. Increase Network Bandwidth

You need to increase your network bandwidth capacity so your website can withstand massive DDoS attacks. Hackers will find it difficult to launch attacks if your network has greater bandwidth. Therefore, it’s worth investing more in your website’s security.

3. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A CDN is useful for filtering out abnormal requests to your website, including those indicative of a DDoS attack. Your website traffic becomes more balanced, and your server can handle all requests because they’ve already been filtered by the CDN.

How does it work? A CDN distributes traffic across servers in different locations. This makes it difficult for hackers to identify your website’s original server as the primary target of a DDoS attack.

4. Set Up Server Redundancy

Also provide additional servers to build redundancy. This tip is useful for backing up data, balancing load, or taking servers offline during maintenance.

5. Implement Layered Protection

The last but equally important tip is to implement layered protection on your website. There are numerous security systems that can be installed to protect your website, including firewalls, content filtering, and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).

Entrust your website’s security to a trusted provider like Cloudmatika. Use the Web Application Firewall (WAF) service to keep your website safe from various types of hacker attacks and data theft, as well as to mitigate and block DDoS attacks that attempt to overload resources and render your website inaccessible. Contact us immediately if you’d like to learn more about this service and get a free trial.