Despite the widespread adoption of DDoS protection solutions, disruptive DDoS attacks continue to make headlines. Why? Even “basic” attacks are bypassing established defenses, as evidenced by the recent DDoS attack on X.
Our analysis, based on over 100,000 hours of annual attack simulations, reveals that all deployed DDoS protections are highly vulnerable — gaps that often go unnoticed until an attack successfully disrupts services. With no effective way to address these weaknesses preemptively, organizations remain exposed. This article examines why DDoS attacks persist and continue to inflict significant damage.
How Even Simple Attacks Bring Down the Best DDoS Protections#
In 2024, Cloudflare reported more than 25 million DDoS attacks - representing a 53% YoY increase. This growing number of DDoS attacks and their escalating cost from damage begs the question: What are we missing? And how can the risk of these attacks (and the damage they cause) be reduced?
Unlike other types of cyberattacks, the only way a DDoS attack can succeed in damaging online service availability is by exploiting vulnerabilities in the deployed DDoS protections - i.e., the only way you can have a damaging DDoS attack (once you have protections) is due to DDoS vulnerabilities in DDoS protection security policies. Cloudflare, Akamai, AWS Advanced Shield, etc. don’t go down when a damaging attack occurs. It’s the end customer’s organization that does.
Closing Holes that Attackers Love to Exploit #
To illustrate the importance of eliminating DDoS vulnerabilities, let’s evaluate how DDoS vulnerabilities compare to other types of vulnerabilities.
Take, for example, the case of vulnerabilities in Web applications: From a theoretical perspective, there would be no need to deploy a WAF if your Web application were to be continuously validated pre-and post-deployment, and if you followed an ongoing process of checking for vulnerabilities that included:
- Undergoing strict static/dynamic application security testing
- Deploying a secure Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
- Running regular penetration tests
- Scanning for vulnerabilities
- Applying patches immediately
If this process were to be followed carefully – there would be zero errors in the coding (CVEs/proprietary) or in the logic of the web application that could be exploited. A WAF would be completely unnecessary.
But this logic does not apply to DDoS vulnerabilities. The only possible protection against a DDoS attack is provided via DDoS mitigation solutions. Unlike WAF, in the case of DDoS vulnerabilities, there is no software engineering (on the end service) that could help you prevent an attack from taking down your online services.
When it comes to DDoS, organizations are completely reliant on fully automated DDoS protection solutions for damage prevention. If the DDoS protection solution your organization is using fails because it had a vulnerable setting – the DDoS attack causes damage and brings down services.
The Unknown Threat in Your Cyber Defenses #
DDoS vulnerabilities are hidden within all DDoS protection solutions – i.e., they are mostly located in the security policies that have become outdated due to the continuous changes in network configurations, and organizations have no visibility into them. An organization can suffer a damaging DDoS attack only if its DDoS protection is vulnerable.
A DDoS vulnerability is defined as a combination of the following:
{DDoS Attack vector + Target (IP or FQDN) + service port}
The following is one example of a potential DDoS vulnerability:
SYN Flood + example.com + 443
If an attacker launched the above combination against the target example.com:
- The target is classified as protected from the particular attack vector and service combination, if the target’s protection solution automatically blocks the attack (the SYN flood).
- The target is classified as vulnerable to the particular attack vector and service combination, if the target’s protection solution does NOT automatically block the attack (the SYN flood), in which case manual intervention would be required - i.e., SLAs are required during a damaging DDoS attack, to mitigate manually.
Stated differently, the results of the attack will be one of these two options:
| Protection Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Protected |
|
| Vulnerable |
|
DDoS Protections Exposed#
Effective DDoS protection requires multiple (hybrid) layers of protection. Associating a DDoS vulnerability with the relevant protection layer is critical for successful remediation as vulnerabilities can only be remediated in the relevant protection policy.
(BTW, try out our DDoS Threat Rating Tool. It’s free, requires no setup, and takes just 3 minutes to identify the top vulnerabilities in your DDoS protection).
Where there is just a single layer of protection, e.g., the Scrubbing Center, it is obvious where the vulnerability is located – it will be in the Scrubbing Center itself. However, many organizations have on-prem. Data centers and cloud deployments, and all are governed by multiple DDoS security layers: Scrubbing Center, WAF, cloud WAF, etc. If there is more than one layer of DDoS protection, it is important to identify in which layer the DDoS vulnerability resides. For example:
SYN Flood + example.com + 443
Scrubbing=vulnerable | On-premises=protected | WAF=protected
In this example, the SYN flood penetrated the vulnerability in the Scrubbing Center security policy, but the on-prem. Devices and WAF mitigated it. This information allows decision-makers to decide where to focus remediation efforts for this specific vulnerability - i.e., in this example, it makes sense to remediate the SYN flood to port 443 on the Scrubbing Center.
If the vulnerability is not patched – and this combination arrives – the target (or even the entire IT infrastructure) is likely to be taken down - until there is manual intervention.
From Correction to Prevention – Rethinking the Approach to DDoS Defense#
Patching a DDoS vulnerability in the protection solution before an attack succeeds may require multiple adjustments until the mitigations are able to stop the attack automatically. These adjustments may include:
- Changing configurations
- Applying new policies
- Enabling different measures or mechanisms
- Changing rate values
The best way to minimize DDoS vulnerabilities involves proactively testing your organization’s automated DDoS protections, identifying vulnerabilities, patching misconfigured policies, and validating that those vulnerabilities have been patched.
Through this continuous validation, you can ensure that your organization has an optimal solution that is at minimal risk of a successful attack.
The DDoS Reality Check#
DDoS vulnerabilities differ from other types of vulnerabilities in several important ways:
- DDoS security relies on automated DDoS protection to avoid a damaging DDoS attack
- The only reason a DDoS attack succeeds is when the DDoS protections are vulnerable
- Vulnerabilities typically arise naturally from network and service changes leading to protection security policy misconfigurations
- The only place to remediate a DDoS vulnerability is in the specific organization’s DDoS protection deployment
- Attack vectors that are most likely to cause damage to a specific environment must be prioritized to ensure the most damaging vulnerabilities are remediated first
MazeBolt RADAR™ Closes the DDoS Protection Gap#
MazeBolt RADAR is a patented DDoS testing and vulnerability management solution that runs continuous, nondisruptive DDoS attack simulations. It identifies and enables the remediation of DDoS vulnerabilities that lead to damaging downtime.
RADAR intelligently prioritizes attack vectors that are most likely to cause damage using our AI-powered SmartCycle™ feature – a new way to prioritize DDoS vulnerability remediation.
Global enterprises trust RADAR to proactively prevent damaging attacks, eliminating reliance on reactive manual responses or SLA guarantees. With its unique technology, RADAR provides unparalleled visibility into defense configurations, empowering organizations to prevent attacks and maintain uninterrupted business continuity. If you want to learn more about RADAR, reach out to us here.
About the Author: Matthew is a renowned expert with over twenty years of experience in cybersecurity. As the Founder and CEO of MazeBolt, Matthew is pioneering a new standard in the DDoS protection market with RADAR™ - a patented product that enables complete visibility into online services for each layer of DDoS protection deployed. Prior to founding MazeBolt, Matthew held senior positions at Radware, Check Point, and Corrigon (acquired by eBay), where he built groundbreaking cybersecurity teams.
Matthew Andriani — Founder and CEO MazeBolt https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi06aGQH-qr2U4ZgH5SuUbrITqvU8USxoUiPySLshEY8Hn3nEHLivq7rfcRQE7gz-CnoRjBXBVpTKyTp8DWx32WVE306SOQ-HIROUJ3DBsKUQcnaUFd1SbyZLRDceJS6M0E0JxqNn1r6B8lUr3UMpRjW7yiSejC4J6YpRdzXuuN2Q103Or3U_54gfq1eXs/s1600/mm.png
