How to Protect Your Server from DDoS Attacks
A practical step-by-step checklist to harden small to medium services against denial-of-service attacks.
Minimum viable protection
Start with a managed WAF/CDN, enable HTTP/2/3, and apply strict TLS. Add IP reputation and challenge flows for suspicious traffic.
- Set rate limits per IP and per endpoint.
- Cache aggressively for static and can-cache dynamic responses.
- Deploy health checks and autoscaling where possible.
- Instrument logs with
request-idand export to SIEM.
During an event: switch to "Under Attack" mode, reduce timeouts, and prefer 429 over backend death.
Test quarterly using authorized load tests and keep runbooks updated.
Quick checklist
- Enable a WAF and bot mitigation
- Apply rate limiting and request throttling
- Put TLS everywhere and prefer HTTP/2 or HTTP/3
- Use anycast CDN/edge scrubbing where possible
- Monitor traffic baselines and alert on anomalies
FAQ
Is testing legal? Only against assets you own and with written authorization.
Does StressFW attack others? No. StressFW content focuses on defense education and authorized testing best practices.
DDoS Protection WAF Rate Limiting Runbooks