Jan 2, 2024
Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are on the rise, escalating in both size and frequency. In 2023, industry giants Google, Amazon, and Cloudflare disclosed hyper-volumetric HTTP/2 attacks that shattered previous records, and in 2025, Cloudflare reported blocking DDoS incidents exceeding 20 terabits per second, nearly doubling the previous “largest ever” events. These attacks show how quickly attacker capacity is growing and how little warning targets often get.
DDoS attacks are malicious attempts to disrupt regular online traffic; flooding targeted servers with traffic to prevent normal users from accessing online services and sites. If your business is not protected from potential DDoS attacks, hackers can weasel their way in to drop legitimate traffic, prevent transactions and revenue, and damage your reputation, sometimes in a matter of minutes.
Gain a better understanding of these growing threats, how they work, and how to prevent them with Blade Technologies.
How Do DDoS Attacks Work?
While they may seem complex, DDoS attacks are relatively straightforward:
- Hackers use individual devices (bots) or a network of internet-connected devices (botnets) to send an overwhelming number of requests to the target system.
- This surge in requests causes a traffic overload, overwhelming the target’s server, network, or application.
- Bots and botnets are typically infected with malware and controlled remotely without the owners’ knowledge. Once the botnet is established, attackers can send remote instructions to each bot simultaneously.
- Each bot sends requests to the targeted IP address, flooding the server or network and creating a denial-of-service for normal users.
Modern attackers rarely launch DDoS traffic from a single computer. Instead, they rely on botnets, large collections of compromised devices that can be controlled remotely. These devices can include everything from vulnerable Internet of Things hardware and home routers to hijacked servers and cloud instances, making it difficult to separate an attack from normal traffic. By spreading an attack across thousands of endpoints, criminals can generate enormous volumes of traffic and make it much harder to block individual sources.
On top of that, DDoS-for-hire services have lowered the barrier to entry. For a relatively small fee, a non-technical attacker can rent access to a botnet and launch large-scale attacks against a chosen target. This combination of powerful botnets and easy access means that businesses of all sizes can be targeted, not just global brands.
DDoS attacks can target any organization or service online, but are commonly directed at high-profile entities like banks, news websites, and government organizations. The motivations behind these attacks vary, including extortion, political activism, or simply to showcase a hacker's skills.
Types of DDoS Attacks
Every connection on the Internet is made up of seven different layers, a framework known as the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. Before data is sent between the layers, each layer must perform a specific task. Different types of DDoS attacks exploit different layers of the OIS model and require different prevention and response tactics. DDoS attacks can be categorized into several types:
Volumetric Attacks
The most common type of attack, volumetric attacks, aim to saturate the bandwidth of the targeted site. Domain name system (DNS) amplification is a typical example of this attack, in which the attacker spoofs your IP address and sends a request to a DNS server to send a large amount of malicious traffic to your site.
Protocol Attacks
Unlike amplification tactics, protocol attacks (or state-exhaustion attacks) focus on exploiting server resources or intermediate communication equipment like firewalls and load balancers. These attacks exploit vulnerabilities in layer 3 (the network layer, where the physical data path is decided) and layer 4 (the transport layer, where data is transmitted using TCP and UDP protocols), making accessing the target server or site impossible. Recent campaigns exploiting the HTTP/2 “Rapid Reset” weakness are a real-world example of how attackers can abuse protocol flaws to generate record-breaking floods of malicious requests.
Application Layer Attacks
Application layer attacks are more sophisticated, targeting specific aspects of an application or service to disrupt its functionality. These attacks are sometimes called layer 7 DDoS attacks because they target the application layer of the OSI model, where applications can access network services. Layer 7 attacks are significantly more difficult to defend against because of the blurred line between malicious and legitimate traffic. Security reports show a sharp rise in application-layer DDoS attacks, especially against financial services, APIs, and login pages, where the traffic closely mimics real users and is much harder to filter out.
Recent DDoS Attack Examples
DDoS attacks are not an abstract risk. Over the last few years, several record-setting incidents have shown how quickly attackers are scaling their capabilities and how little time targets have to respond.
2023: HTTP/2 “Rapid Reset” Attacks
In 2023, Google, Amazon, and Cloudflare disclosed a wave of attacks that abused a weakness in the HTTP/2 protocol, often called “Rapid Reset.” These campaigns pushed DDoS volume to new heights, with Google reporting an attack peaking at more than 398 million requests per second, several times larger than anything seen the year before.
The key lesson from these attacks is that protocol-level flaws can be weaponized very quickly. Once attackers discovered how to exploit HTTP/2 streams at scale, they were able to generate enormous bursts of traffic using botnets and cloud infrastructure.
2025: 7.3 Tbps Attack
In mid-2025, Cloudflare announced that it had automatically blocked what was then the largest reported DDoS attack in history, peaking at 7.3 terabits per second. The attack, which targeted a hosting provider, delivered roughly 37.4 terabytes of malicious traffic in just 45 seconds and involved more than 122,000 source IP addresses spread across 161 countries.
This type of hyper-volumetric, short-duration burst is designed to overwhelm infrastructure before human responders can even log in to their tools, which is why always-on, automated mitigation is so important.
2025: 22.2 Tbps Hyper-Volumetric Attack
By September 2025, another DDoS campaign had set a new world record, with traffic peaks around 22.2 terabits per second and more than 10 billion packets per second, aimed at a European network infrastructure provider and linked to the Aisuru botnet.
This attack nearly doubled the size of a pervious 11.5 Tbps event and reinforces a troubling trend: Hyper-volumetric attacks are becoming the new normal for well-resourced adversaries.
How Can DDoS Attacks Impact Your Business?
While it may seem obvious, the immediate consequence of a DDoS attack is service disruption. This can manifest as slow website performance, inability to access online services, or complete website downtime. For businesses, especially those reliant on online transactions or services, this can cause significant financial loss. Attackers are especially focused on industries where downtime is expensive, such as financial services, eCommerce, SaaS providers, healthcare, and critical infrastructure. For these businesses, even a short DDoS outage can mean lost revenue, missed transactions, and compliance headaches.
However, the immediate disruption is only the beginning. DDoS attacks can cause lasting damage to your brand’s reputation, as customers may perceive your company as unreliable or insecure after the breach. Additionally, if customer data is compromised during the attack, you may face legal challenges and hefty fines, especially under regulations like the GDPR.
Finally, you can’t forget the financial costs that come after the attack. The cost of mitigating the attack and restoring services can be substantial, particularly for smaller businesses with limited resources. You may also see a rise in insurance premiums and cybersecurity costs as you invest more heavily in preventing future attacks. This makes it vital to consult a cybersecurity expert like Blade Technologies to ensure your security measures are robust enough to prevent DDoS attacks before they occur.
How Can You Prevent DDoS Attacks?
The first step in defending against DDoS attacks is building a resilient IT infrastructure. This involves designing a network with redundancy and the ability to absorb or reroute excess traffic. Utilizing cloud-based services like those Blade offers can also offer scalability to handle traffic surges. Lastly, your company should consider diversifying the paths for network traffic instead of relying on a single point of access, regularly stress testing the network to simulate DDoS conditions and identify vulnerabilities.
For the best protection possible, you may want to explore the possibility of a cybersecurity partnership. With managed cybersecurity services, companies like Blade Technologies constantly monitor your networks to identify and respond to potential threats in real time. You can also implement a set of security best practices to mitigate DDoS risks. This includes:
- Firewalls and Anti-DDoS Software: Deploying advanced firewall configurations and specialized anti-DDoS software can detect and filter out malicious traffic, minimizing the risk of a large-scale DDoS attack.
- Regular Security Audits: Frequently conduct security audits to ensure that all protective measures are functioning correctly and update them as necessary to reduce the vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit.
- Capacity Planning: Ensure you have sufficient bandwidth to handle unexpected spikes in traffic that could indicate a DDoS attack.
- Employee Training: Train your team to identify suspicious activities and how to follow proper security protocols to bolster your defense strategy.
- Response Plan: Have a well-defined response plan that outlines the steps to be taken in the event of a DDoS attack, including how to quickly assess the situation, who to communicate with (both internally and externally), and how to mitigate the impact.
How Should You Respond to a DDoS Attack?
The moment you notice an unusual pattern or spike in traffic that may indicate an attack, your team must quickly take the necessary actions to minimize the impact. Implementing an intrusion detection system (IDS) and a network monitoring solution can be highly effective in early identification.
Once a DDoS attack is detected, the following steps should be taken immediately to mitigate its impact:
- Traffic Redirection and Filtering: Utilize tools and techniques to redirect traffic away from critical components or to filter out malicious traffic. This can be done manually, through automated systems, or by a trusted third-party cybersecurity partner.
- Rate Limiting: Implement rate limiting to control the traffic to a manageable level and restore access to your online services.
- ISP and DDoS Mitigation Services: Promptly communicate with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and any third-party cybersecurity firms you work with. They can provide additional resources and strategies to help deflect and absorb malicious traffic.
After the attack subsides, it’s important to conduct a thorough analysis and recovery process. First, evaluate the extent of the disruption and any potential data breaches or losses. As you explore the damage, work towards restoring all services to their normal state as quickly as possible. Once your services are back online, document the incident and communicate with stakeholders about the attack and the steps to resolve it. Remember, transparency is the key to maintaining trust among customers and partners.
Frequently Asked Questions About DDoS Attacks
What is the difference between DDoS attacks and normal traffic spikes?
Normal traffic spikes are driven by real users, such as a big sale or a successful marketing campaign. A DDoS attack is artificial, using bots or botnets to generate huge volumes of junk traffic. With DDoS, the goal is not to buy or interact; it is to overwhelm your systems so legitimate users cannot get through.
How can I tell if my website is under a DDoS attack?
Common signs include sudden, unexplained slowdowns, frequent timeouts, website or application errors, and monitoring tools showing high traffic with no matching increase in real users or conversions. If performance tanks and you cannot connect to your own site or VPN, a DDoS attack should be on the shortlist of suspects.
Can a DDoS attack steal my data?
On its own, a DDoS attack is focused on disruption, not data theft. However, attackers often use DDoS as a smokescreen to hide other malicious activity, such as trying to break into accounts or exploit vulnerabilities, while your team is busy restoring service. That is why DDoS protection and broader cybersecurity monitoring need to work together
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Are small and midsize businesses really targeted by DDoS attacks?
Yes. Attackers frequently go after small and midsize organizations because they assume defenses are weaker and response plans are less mature. DDoS-for-hire services make it easy for anyone with a credit card and a grievance to launch attacks against businesses of any size.
Defend Against DDoS Attacks with Blade Technologies
By implementing the strategies outlined above, you are well on your way to completely protecting your business against DDoS attacks. However, with the rise in denial-of-service attacks and evolving hacking methods, having a trusted cybersecurity partner is essential in fully defending against cybercrime. Blade Technologies, your premier St. Louis IT and cybersecurity firm, has the cybersecurity tools to help keep your systems locked down.
Partnering with Blade Technologies means investing in peace of mind. Our constant network monitoring, advanced cybersecurity tools, and dedicated support team provide the robust defense your business needs to thrive in our increasingly interconnected world. Don’t wait for a cyberattack to reveal the vulnerabilities in your network; contact our cybersecurity experts and secure your digital assets today.
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