Website Security and Prevention of a HTTP Flood Attack

What is HTTP flood attack?

A HTTP flood attack is a type of cyber attack in which an attacker sends a high volume of invalid web requests to a website in order to crash its server or render it inaccessible to others. This can be accomplished through social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. In this scenario, the attacker may use the tool "Open-Xchange" to send automated requests. The Open-Xchange tool allows you to create an account and then make an unlimited number of requests for information from any given website.

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What are the dangers of HTTP flood attack?

If you are a business owner, then you should be concerned with what happens if your website becomes inaccessible due to a HTTP flood attack. If your company's website is affected by a HTTP flood attack, then your customers won't have any way of contacting or purchasing from the company for an indefinite amount of time. This could cause the company to lose revenue and reputation.

Additionally, if one of your customers becomes a victim of a HTTP flood attack, then that customer will have lost access to their account for an indefinite period of time. With this kind of long-term consequence, it is important that you take necessary precautions to ensure that your business doesn't suffer from a HTTP flood attack.

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HTTP flood attack in action

A HTTP flood attack is a type of cyber attack in which an attacker sends a high volume of invalid web requests to a website in order to crash its server or render it inaccessible to others. When the website cannot process all the request, it crashes and turns into a black screen with either spinning circles or just nothing at all. If your website becomes unreachable for even a few minutes, you will lose customers and potentially shut down your website.

To avoid this situation, you need to make sure that your social media websites are prepared for when they are attacked. That means setting up an effective web application firewall (WAF) on your site and also having backups ready that can be restored quickly if needed.

Another way to prevent a HTTP flood attack from ruining your business is by using SSL certificates. SSL certificates encrypt data as it crosses the internet, preventing hackers from accessing unencrypted information. As long as the certificate is valid and installed correctly, then your audience will have peace of mind knowing that their information is safe and secure online.

Types of HTTP flood attacks

There are many types of HTTP flood attacks. For example, a hacker can try to do any of the following:

• Send in multiple requests with a high volume in order to crash the server
• Send in invalid requests that include random or otherwise unlikely data
• Attempt to bypass access controls on the website

Since they're so common, these attacks often go unnoticed by most website owners until it's too late. This is why it's important for business owners to know how to prevent these attacks and keep their websites safe.

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GET attack

A GET attack is a type of cyber attack that specifically targets HTTP servers. It consists of a single HTTP request to the website from the attacker's computer, followed by multiple GETs to different URLs on the same website. This causes an avalanche effect due to how many fields are sent in each request, which leads to the server being unable to handle requests properly and crashing.

The best way to prevent a GET attack is by having your web server configured with Apache mod_security and mod_evasive modules or NGINX with an iptables rule. These modules will ensure that all incoming traffic is approved before it reaches your web server and prevents any malicious traffic from reaching it.

If you have already been attacked, then you would need to flush existing requests from your web server by adding an Apache or NGINX rule.

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Detecting HTTP flood attacks

There are a few ways in which you can detect if your website is under a HTTP flood attack.

• If the website is slow loading, then this is a red flag and it may be that your site has been targeted by an HTTP flood attack.
• Another way to detect whether your website has been targeted by an HTTP flood attack is if all of the servers on your site are crashing, or if the company hosting your website tells you that it has received too many invalid requests from its servers.
• Another way to tell if your website has been targeted by an HTTP flood attack is if there are high amounts of traffic on all of the pages on the site.

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Mitigating HTTP flood attacks

There are several ways to mitigate HTTP flood attacks:

• Firstly, you should take advantage of the tools provided by your website provider to keep an eye on how many invalid requests your website is receiving.
• You will also want to use SSL certificates, which encrypts any personal information that is being sent from your site and prevents hackers from stealing or tampering with any sensitive data.
• Additionally, if you have a website hosted on a Content Delivery Network (CDN), consider using their service for your website traffic. This will ensure that no HTTP request ever reaches your server-side code, and your business will not be exposed to a HTTP flood attack.
• Another way to reduce the risk of an HTTP flood attack is by using application program interface API gateways such as Auth0. These gateways regulate access to secure APIs by providing security rules for each API call and validating the user’s identity before allowing them access to the API.

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How can a Wallarm stop HTTP flood attack?

A Wallarm is a cloud-based web application firewall that prevents cyber attacks and protects your website. It uses the power of stateful application firewalling to detect, block, and alert you when something isn't right. With this service, you will be able to prevent and stop HTTP flood attacks with ease. The best part is that Wallarm integrates seamlessly with your existing web servers or virtual private servers (VPS) so you can keep your business online!

Just place your trust in Wallarm as it is built by experts in the industry. We are not only responsible for our technology but also have a strong track record of customer satisfaction.

Conclusion

Now that you know how to prevent and detect HTTP flood attacks, it's time to talk about defending your website from them.