How to shut out cyberattacks and stay safe with Azure Front Door

It’s not “if” you will be faced with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, but “when.” As hackers carry out one of the most prevalent types of cyberattacks, they attempt to shut down their targets’ websites by flooding them with such an overload of requests that the website resources simply cannot keep up. In fact, in a Microsoft Trends and Insights report, the average number of DDoS attacks in 2022 was as high as 1,435 incidents per day. That year, in total, we mitigated upwards of 520,000 unique attacks against our global infrastructure. What’s more, the FBI is also on to the uptick, and recently seized 48 DDoS-for-hire sites, charging the six people running them.

Numerous industries have reported these types of attacks. Nobody is immune, but defeat isn’t inevitable. SHI is here to tell you what hackers want and what you can do to show them the door before they even reach your stoop.

What are they after?

According to the same Microsoft Trends and Insights report, bad actors are not just going after your website and public-facing exposures; they’re coming for your Internet of Things (IoT) devices as well. As they try to disrupt your network, hackers repurpose existing malware and botnets for DDoS attacks. With the escalating deployment of all kinds of IoT devices, your attack-surface exposure to bad actors is therefore exponentially increased.

Unfortunately, your vulnerabilities don’t end there. Hackers can also target weak points in your system such as security cameras, access points, printers, and other devices that aren’t given the same level of thought as “person-oriented” access protocols. All it takes is one crack in the door for the whole house to come crashing down.

What can you do?

Luckily, you have SHI and Microsoft to keep watch. With a renowned team of security experts, SHI can work with your organization to ensure your IT team has the tools, solutions, and best practices in place to keep you safe from all types of threats – not just DDoS attacks. Microsoft also has a team of 3,500 global security experts who monitor the world for threats and develop defensive solutions that you can use to avoid these risks.

DDoS defense tip: Avoid having a single virtual machine backend, so it is less likely to get overwhelmed

One solution is proving particularly effective too. With Azure Front Door, you can deploy a scalable, secure Cloud Delivery Network (CDN) that has security tools built right in to mitigate any DDoS attack that may come knocking. One way that Azure Front Door can protect you is with its built-in automatic and scalable caching capabilities. This blocks overloading attacks from reaching your network and server resources, preventing possible devastation. In fact, Azure Front Door recently insulated a customer from receiving over 60 billion individual malicious requests in a single attack.

This revolutionary solution can be the key to locking up an extra layer of protection as it integrates with all aspects of your current infrastructure and security posture. Azure Front Door even gives you the ability to customize rules and routing options to handle potential threat traffic, and since it’s powered by the global Microsoft Azure network, you have global scaling and failover capabilities at your fingertips. You can also seamlessly attach web application firewall (WAF), DDoS protection, and bot protection to safeguard all your apps and content.

DDoS defense tip: Azure DDoS Protection covers scaled out costs incurred for all resources during an attack. Make sure to configure autoscaling to absorb the initial burst of attack traffic while mitigation kicks in.

Sadly, it takes more than just a single solution to keep hackers from darkening your doorway. Because Azure Front Door is just one piece of a complete DDoS protection strategy, SHI’s experienced team of security experts stands ready to evaluate your environment and its potential threats. You can expect guidance that actually prevents attacks, helping you deploy crucial threat mitigation and protection solutions to keep your organization open for business.

Learn more about how SHI and Microsoft can help with your overall security posture, and speak with a cybersecurity specialist today.