Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks remain one of the most effective methods used by cyber criminals to cause significant financial, operational, and reputational damage to organizations worldwide. Though these attacks take different forms, the goal is always to incapacitate targeted servers, services, or networks by flooding them with traffic from organized botnets, compromised devices, or networks.

As organizations have hardened their cyber defenses, criminals have responded with newer attack types targeting multiple applications and services. Some of these attacks target the network and transport layer in new ways, resulting in record-breaking network traffic spikes of almost 6 Tbps per second. Others are low-speed, low-intensity, application layer-based offensives designed to be undetectable while targeting one or more services gateways.

Meeting the challenges associated with DDoS attacks requires a comprehensive approach that addresses all threats from the network to application layer.