To keep web applications from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, a multi-layered method utilizing AWS tools and technology approaches must be implemented. If you want to prevent your applications from DDoS attacks, it is important to comprehend what AWS has for those who desire to take infrastructure security to the next level.
The Given Details Explain the Theoretical Structure of AWS Services Directed at Securing Your Applications From DDoS Attacks, and as a result, it Constitutes High Availability and Performance.
AWS Shield and AWS Shield Advanced
AWS Shield Standard offers protection against DDoS attacks at the network (Layer 3) and transport (Layer 4) levels. It spots and deals with the most common attacks without any manual input. AWS Shield Advanced goes beyond this. It gives in-depth attack insights and helps fight off more tricky attacks, like those that drain resources or target the application layer (Layer 7). Customers with Business or Enterprise support can also engage the Shield Response Team (SRT) 24×7 to manage and mitigate their application layer DDoS attacks.
Adaptive Threat Intelligence
Shield Advanced harnesses global threat data in real time and tackles emerging threats. This flexible method keeps learning from previous attack trends to boost its ability to detect threats.
Flow-Based Monitoring
Shield Advanced uses flow-based monitoring to watch incoming traffic. It looks at packet headers and payloads to spot harmful traffic. This detailed look allows it to stop bad traffic without affecting good traffic.
Amazon CloudFront and AWS WAF: Advanced Configurations
Amazon CloudFront not only decreases latency through caching content at edge locations but also it acts as a DDoS mitigation layer by absorbing and dispersing attack traffic. CloudFront’s integration with AWS WAF allows for the deployment of custom rules to filter out malicious requests before they reach your origin servers.
Edge Location Filtering
CloudFront can filter out malicious traffic at the edge locations, decreasing the load on your origin servers. By deploying rate-based rules and geographic restrictions at the edge, you may prevent large-scale attacks from reaching your core infrastructure.
Custom WAF Rules
AWS WAF allows the creation of custom rules by using AWS WAF’s rule language to block specific attack patterns. You shall deploy rate-based rules to limit the number of requests from a single IP address and regular expressions to block known malicious payloads.
Managed Rules
AWS WAF allows the creation of custom rule groups, as well as the use of managed rule groups provided by AWS or third-party vendors. Managed rules protect against known vulnerabilities, while custom rules can be tailored to specific application requirements. AWS provides pre-configured rule sets that include defense against usual attack vectors such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and HTTP protocol anomalies. These managed rules are uninterruptedly updated by AWS to reflect the latest threat intelligence.
Elastic Load Balancing (ELB): Enhancing Scalability and Resilience
Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) plays a vital role in managing incoming traffic by dispersing it across multiple targets. ELB aids in isolating DDoS impact and maintaining application availability.
Connection Draining
ELB supports connection draining, which ensures that ongoing requests are completed before instances are terminated or deregistered. This characteristic is critical during a DDoS attack, allowing the balancer to gracefully scale out and in without dropping connections.
Cross-Zone Load Balancing
This feature also ensures the distribution of traffic across multiple Availability Zones, which aids in mitigating zone-specific DDoS attacks. Maintaining an even traffic distribution prevents any one zone from becoming a bottleneck.
TLS Termination and Inspection
ELB can handle TLS termination, which offloads the encryption/decryption process from your instances. This ability allows for deeper inspection of encrypted traffic and better detection of malicious payloads.
Sticky Sessions and Application Layer Balancing
ELB supports sticky sessions (session persistence), which is important for stateful applications. By making sure that a user’s session is always directed to the same instance, you can maintain session integrity even during the attack.
Protection using Route 53
The DNS firewall allows you to create rules to block malicious DNS queries, hence providing an additional layer of safety against DNS-based Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.
Managed Domain Lists
The service provides AWS Managed Domain Lists that help you protect against suspicious domains and Command-and-Control (C&C) bots.
Learn More About:
AWS Landing Zone Accelerator Connectivity with VMware Cloud on AWS!