DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service)

A DDoS attack uses a distributed network of source IPs (typically a botnet of compromised devices, or amplified reflections off open services) to overwhelm a target's bandwidth, CPU, or specific application resources. DDoS attacks come in three families: volumetric (saturate bandwidth, e.g. UDP amplification), protocol-layer (exhaust connection tables, e.g. SYN floods), and application-layer (exhaust application resources, e.g. HTTP floods against expensive endpoints).

Mitigation has three tiers: edge scrubbing (inspect and drop attack traffic upstream of the target — what Cloudflare, AWS Shield, and offshore hosts' anycast networks do), rate-limiting at the application server, and proof-of-work / CAPTCHA challenges for application-layer attacks. SilentHosts ships with 10 Gbps DDoS scrubbing standard on all plans, with optional upgrades to 100+ Gbps for high-attack workloads.