What is a DDoS attack? 7 tips to protect your business

In today's digital landscape, DDoS attacks (Distributed Denial of Service) have become one of the most significant threats to business IT infrastructure. These attacks aim to overwhelm a company's network or services by flooding them with massive amounts of traffic from multiple sources simultaneously. The resulting overload often leads to downtime, lost revenue, and damaged trust. DDoS attacks can take down entire operations in just minutes, and incidents continue to rise.

What Is a DDoS Attack?

A DDoS attack occurs when attackers use a network of infected computers to send enormous volumes of traffic. The goal is to overwhelm a web service, server, or network and make it inaccessible to legitimate users. The impact can be devastating, especially for businesses that depend on online services. Unlike traditional DoS attacks, which originate from a single device, DDoS attacks use multiple systems to mask the attack's origin and make it far more difficult to manage.

Watch our recorded webinar on DDoS Protection in Practice.

Why Are DDoS Attacks Carried Out?

The motives behind overload attacks vary, but the most common reasons include:

• Financial extortion – attackers threaten to continue the assault unless a ransom is paid.

• Competitive sabotage – businesses may be targeted by competitors looking to disrupt their operations.

• Political activism – some attacks are carried out by "hacktivists" with political or ideological agendas.

• Security testing – attacks are sometimes used to probe a company's cyber defenses, often before launching larger assaults.

Consequences for Businesses

A DDoS attack can paralyze operations and cause significant financial losses. Beyond the direct costs of downtime, expenses mount for IT specialists, legal assistance, and in some cases, ransom payments. A company's reputation often takes a hit as well.

Being targeted by an attack is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, 60% of Swedish companies report experiencing at least one cyberattack in the past year alone. Read more here: Cyberattack – Protect Your Business from Threats.

The aftermath of a DDoS attack can be both immediate and long-term:

• Downtime: Company services become unavailable to customers and employees.

• Financial losses: Both direct (lost sales) and indirect (damaged trust).

• Brand damage: Repeated attacks can erode customer confidence in the company and brand.

• IT costs: Expensive efforts are required to restore normal operations and analyze the attack.

DDoS attacks have surged in recent years, particularly in industries like e-commerce, finance, and the public sector. In our guide: Cyberattack – Protect Your Business from Threats, Telia security expert Sam Rabar emphasizes that the question is no longer if a company will be attacked, but when.

Tips for Protecting Your Business from DDoS Attacks

Here are some important concrete steps businesses should take to prevent and mitigate the impact of DDoS attacks.

1. Analyze How Outages Affect You

Consider how severe the consequences would be if your website or digital service went down due to a DDoS attack. How much downtime can you tolerate before customers are negatively affected? Do certain business-critical systems need more protection than others? The goal doesn't have to be complete immunity from attacks. What matters most is understanding your vulnerabilities.

2. Keep Business Systems and Web Separate

If your website is exposed to the internet via a public IP address, it should be isolated from your company's internal network. This way, an attack on your homepage won't affect other systems. Review how traffic can be distributed so that access to business-critical functions isn't threatened.

3. Have a Clear Action Plan

Agree with your IT or security provider on exactly how to respond during an attack. Should protection activate automatically, or do you want to review suspicious situations before taking action?

4. Who Does What During an Attack?

During a DDoS attack, time is critical. That's why training and preparedness are essential. It's not just the IT department that needs to be aware of the threat. Companies should train their staff in cybersecurity and have a ready incident plan for handling DDoS attacks. It must be clear who's responsible for contacting security providers, the IT department, and other key personnel.

5. Prepare Crisis Communications in Advance

Having a pre-written message ready for your website and intranet is also smart – so customers and employees can be quickly informed about the situation. The messaging will also be more thoughtful when drafted in calm circumstances.

6. Deploy Dedicated DDoS Protection

Strengthen your network with proactive protection that monitors traffic in real time and responds to anomalies. DDoS protection uses advanced filtering to block attacks without disrupting normal traffic. Choose a provider that offers 24/7 support – it's reassuring if an attack occurs outside business hours.

Telia DDoS Protection is an intelligent filtering system that identifies and filters out suspicious traffic before it reaches your company's network. Through capacity monitoring and real-time analysis, unusual traffic patterns and suspicious activity can be quickly identified and managed before your services are affected. The system operates in real time and can be customized to your company's needs and traffic patterns.

7. Emergency Help During Active Attacks

For businesses already under attack, Telia DDoS Emergency Protection offers protection that can be activated within hours to help offload traffic and restore availability while a permanent solution is implemented.

Notable DDoS Attacks

1.The Cloudflare Attack – 2025

In June 2025, Cloudflare recorded the largest DDoS attack ever, peaking at 7.3 terabits per second. The attack lasted 45 seconds and leveraged over 122, 000 IP addresses from 161 countries. That's equivalent to roughly 7, 500 hours of HD video streamed simultaneously – an enormous load on infrastructure.

2. The Halloween Attack – 2024

During Halloween week 2024, Cloudflare stopped another massive attack at 5.6 Tbit/s, which was then the largest ever reported. This attack was part of a broader trend where hyper-volumetric DDoS attacks increased by nearly 1, 900% compared to the previous quarter.

3. The GitHub Attack – 2018

GitHub, one of the world's largest code-sharing platforms, was hit by a DDoS attack at 1.35 Tbit/s. It was the largest attack at the time and was carried out using a technique called "memcached amplification," where attackers amplify their traffic by exploiting vulnerable servers.

4. The Dyn Attack – 2016

One of the most infamous DDoS attacks took down large portions of the internet in the US and Europe. The target was DNS provider Dyn, and the attack affected services like Twitter, Netflix, Reddit, and Spotify. It was executed using the Mirai botnet, which consisted of infected IoT devices that flooded Dyn's servers with traffic.

DDoS Protection Is a Necessity

DDoS attacks are no longer a peripheral threat – they're a concrete and growing problem for businesses of all sizes and industries. Investing in protection and knowledge isn't just a technical issue, but a strategic necessity. With the right preventive measures and partners, such as Telia, companies can prepare for future cyber threats and ensure their digital resilience.

Telia's DDoS Solutions

Telia offers both proactive and emergency protection services. DDoS Protection is an advanced solution that combines filtering, analysis, and monitoring. It comes in two versions:

• DDoS Protection Light with a fixed cost of just SEK 495/month.

• DDoS Protection Standard, a more advanced service where we provide a quote based on your unique needs.

Even if you've already been targeted, we can help. For businesses currently under attack, our DDoS Emergency Protection service is available. It activates within hours and provides temporary but effective protection until a permanent solution is in place.