How to Stop a DDoS Attack on Your Website & Recover After an Incident

A distributed denial-of-service attack, also known as a DDoS attack, is a malicious attempt that occurs when a large volume of automated requests overwhelms a server or network and prevents normal access to your website for real visitors. In a matter of minutes, this flood of traffic can disrupt performance and bring your website to a grinding halt.

In the past, these attacks were more of an annoyance than a serious threat, but this has changed. Attackers now use larger botnets, more advanced automation, and broader targeting across businesses of every size. Simply put, DDoS attacks are growing in both size and frequency. A report showed that web DDoS attacks climbed sharply, rising 39 percent compared to the second half of 2024, and the second quarter recorded an even larger 54 percent jump quarter over quarter.

For small businesses, the financial impact can escalate quickly. Downtime often disrupts sales, support operations, and customer trust. Recovering from a DDoS attack like this could cost a small business thousands of dollars.

Why does a fast response to a DDoS attack matter?

A rapid, organized response is critical when a DDoS attack begins. Even brief delays can intensify service disruptions, strain infrastructure, and limit the options available for mitigation. Acting quickly allows teams to contain malicious internet traffic before it overwhelms critical systems, allows them to maintain access for legitimate users, and reduces the overall impact on business operations and customer trust.

Below are several key strategies to help stop DDoS attacks on your network, broken up into immediate response actions that contain the attack quickly and proactive measures that strengthen your defenses before the next attempt occurs.

How do you stop a DDoS attack? (immediate steps)

Incident response in the first moments of a DDoS attack is essential for maintaining the integrity and availability of your online services. Below are several key steps that form the foundation of an effective real-time response.

1. Identifying the attack

The first and most critical step in dealing with a DDoS attack is to recognize that the attack is in progress. This requires continuous network traffic monitoring, with systems in place that alert you to unusual traffic spikes or abnormal traffic patterns that deviate from your typical network activity. Utilizing advanced network monitoring tools can help in quickly detecting these traffic increases, which is essential for a timely response.

2. Blocking the malicious traffic

Once you've identified that a DDoS attack is underway, the immediate priority is to block the malicious traffic flooding your network. During a DDoS attack, Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) and intrusion prevention systems become invaluable. These tools are designed to filter out the harmful traffic that constitutes a DDoS attack. They work by distinguishing between legitimate traffic and malicious data packets, allowing only legitimate requests to pass through.

Promptly implementing these measures can significantly reduce the impact of the attack on your network and services.

3. Analyzing the attack type

After initial containment, it's important to evaluate the nature of the attack. This involves determining the specific type of DDoS attack you've experienced. DDoS attacks can vary, from volumetric attacks that overwhelm your network with traffic to application-layer attacks aimed at specific services or endpoints. Common types of DDoS attacks include teardrop attacks and DNS floods.

Understanding the attack type provides insight into which vulnerabilities were targeted, helps validate the effectiveness of your response, and informs long-term defensive refinement.

Recovering after a DDoS attack

Once the immediate impact of a DDoS attack is contained, your priority shifts to recovery. This involves restoring affected systems, verifying data integrity, and ensuring your environment is fully stable before normal operations resume. The steps below outline the core activities involved in a structured recovery process.

Restore services and assess damage

Begin recovery by bringing essential systems back online in a controlled sequence. Verify which applications or services were disrupted and restore functionality gradually to avoid further instability. Review logs for errors, corrupted files, or processes that failed under load, and restore clean data from backups if necessary.

Assess the extent of the damage or data loss and take steps to recover any affected services as quickly as possible. It's also important to conduct a security audit to ensure that no underlying vulnerabilities remain that could be exploited in future attacks.

Validate system integrity and remove residual risks

Once services are operational, verify that system behavior has returned to normal by checking authentication activity, error logs, and traffic baselines. Make sure that temporary blocks, filters, or routing changes applied during the attack are removed or adjusted to prevent disruptions.

Document any weak components exposed by the attack, keeping this strictly focused on post-incident validation rather than long-term prevention.

How do you prevent future DDoS attacks?

Even after recovery, it is important to take steps that reduce the chance of another disruption. This might involve implementing additional security measures such as DDoS mitigation services, enhanced network security solutions, or more sophisticated monitoring systems. The goal is to strengthen your defenses to reduce the likelihood or impact of future DDoS attacks. Regularly reviewing and updating your security measures is essential in the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats.

For a fuller breakdown of proactive defenses, including guidance on WAFs, CDNs, and response planning, see our article on how to protect against DDoS attacks.

Strengthen your DDoS protection with SiteLock

While DDoS attacks can be daunting, having a structured and well-prepared response plan can significantly reduce their impact. By following these steps, from early detection to post-attack recovery and prevention, you can safeguard your digital assets against future attacks, ensuring the continuous operation and reliability of your online services.

See how SiteLock can help with our comprehensive website security plans, which include everything from malware detection and removal to a WAF and website vulnerability patching. Our protection services are cost-effective and help improve your site's security posture.

Frequently asked questions

Why is a DDoS attack destructive?

There are several DDoS attack variants, but in general, cybercriminals will use these types of attacks to block legitimate traffic to a website. Multiple remote-controlled computers on different networks flood servers with coordinated, “fake” requests. The web of machines used to launch the attack is called a “botnet.”

Often, the volume of requests forces the host server to crash, taking the targeted website offline. Even when a site stays online, sustained pressure can slow it down enough to render it unusable to visitors.

How much can a DDoS attack cost a business?

The loss of legitimate website traffic in the wake of a DDoS attack can be costly for businesses of all sizes. Even small to medium-sized businesses can lose thousands of dollars for every hour of downtime.

For many organizations, reputational damage is even harder to recover from than the financial hit. Failing to protect your website can erode customer trust, and rebuilding that trust often takes far longer than restoring systems.

Why do people launch DDoS attacks?

While DDoS attacks can be costly to victims, they’re relatively cheap for cybercriminals to execute, which is one reason they’re growing in popularity.

A cybercriminal usually won’t gain direct financial benefit from a DDoS attack unless hired to execute it. More commonly, attackers use DDoS activity as a distraction tactic, capturing the attention of the target organization while data theft or malware injection is carried out behind the scenes. Other motives might be political, egocentric, or retaliatory in nature, and almost anyone can hire a cybercriminal to carry out a DDoS attack.

What are the signs of a DDoS attack?

Diagnosing DDoS attacks can be challenging because the symptoms of an attack often resemble non-malicious availability issues, such as slow site speeds or normal network congestion.

However, if the connection to your site is unusually slow or your site is completely unable to connect to the network, you might be experiencing signs of a DDoS attack. Similarly, if you notice an unusual or unexpected surge in website traffic that lasts for days, rather than just hours, or a significant spike in spam emails, you could be under attack.

Can you prevent a DDoS attack?

Mitigation techniques are highly important. It’s cheaper and easier to prevent a DDoS attack than it is to recover from one.

Your primary layer of defense against DDoS attacks should be a Web Application Firewall (WAF). This firewall not only protects against powerful DDoS threats but also redirects malicious traffic to different content delivery networks, easing the load on your server. It's effective when used alongside a website scanner or intrusion detection system, which helps identify and remove malicious bot traffic and malware. Setting up alerts for unusual traffic loads and configuring automatic blocking of suspicious network packets can further enhance security. Without these safeguards, you may be unable to fully disrupt a DDoS attack once it begins, forcing you to ride out the downtime.

For small business owners, cybersecurity is essential, and they need to be proactive in preventing cyber attacks, especially with the rise of unsecured Internet of Things (IoT) devices, which could provide more avenues for hackers. Strengthening the security of all your devices is a key step in avoiding becoming a target.