In 2024, we experienced an alarming 94% rise in DDoS attacks, which raises serious concerns about cybersecurity. A significant portion of this problem comes from web application attacks, responsible for 43% of all data breaches worldwide. For businesses, this situation poses two big challenges: ensuring their cloud services can handle unexpected surges in traffic and protecting themselves against ever-more advanced attacks.
In this article, we'll explore practical strategies for safeguarding cloud infrastructure against both DDoS attacks and web application threats. These actionable tips will equip security teams with the tools they need to stay ahead in today's rapidly changing cybersecurity landscape!
DDoS attacks attempt to overwhelm cloud services by flooding them with traffic from multiple sources simultaneously. Unlike typical network attacks, these are designed to exploit the ease with which cloud resources can scale. That means even if your services stay online, the attack can drive up costs dramatically as the system automatically adds more capacity to handle the surge.
Volumetric attacks hit like digital tsunamis, flooding networks with waves of UDP packets, ICMP requests, or amplified DNS traffic. The goal? To choke bandwidth until systems can barely breathe. Their scale is staggering, measured in gigabits per second (Gbps) or packets per second (PPS)—and in some large-scale assaults, the surge can soar past 100 Gbps, leaving even robust infrastructures gasping for stability.
The thing about Protocol attacks is that they exploit weaknesses in network protocols like TCP/IP, SYN floods, and fragmented packet attacks: these target server resources and network equipment rather than bandwidth, exhausting connection state tables and overwhelming firewalls.
Application-layer attacks target specific web applications or APIs by bombarding them with a large number of requests that appear perfectly normal at first glance. They don’t require a lot of computing power to execute, but they can cause serious damage and are notoriously difficult to detect and stop.
Cloud setups bring their own set of challenges. Features that automatically scale resources to handle real traffic spikes can backfire during an attack, driving up costs as more resources spin up.
According to Astrill’s report on DDOS protection, Effective DDoS protection requires defense-in-depth strategies that address attacks at multiple network layers simultaneously.
Cloud-native DDoS protection services can significantly enhance your security. These services continuously monitor your traffic and automatically respond to any unusual activity. They use machine learning to differentiate between real users and harmful traffic, which strengthens your defenses during an attack.
To get the most out of these services, it's important to set them up correctly. You should adjust the settings to detect attacks, enable features like SYN flood protection, and link the service with your CDN. Many organizations miss the full benefits because their configurations are not done properly.
CDNs, such as Cloudflare, Akamai, and Fastly, also play a crucial role. They spread traffic across servers worldwide, which helps absorb heavy attacks before they reach your main systems. Edge caching delivers static content directly from CDN nodes, reducing the load on your servers. Rate limiting at the edge stops individual users from overwhelming your applications, and geographic filtering blocks traffic from locations where you do not operate, immediately decreasing your attack surface.
A properly configured WAF serves as the primary defense against application-layer attacks, inspecting HTTP/HTTPS traffic for malicious patterns.
To protect your applications, modern web application firewalls (WAFs) use different methods. Signature-based detection looks for known attack patterns, such as SQL injection strings or XSS payloads. This gives you quick protection against already identified threats.
At the same time, behavioral analysis monitors how your application normally works and alerts you if something unusual happens. Machine learning adds another layer of defense by helping the WAF adapt to new attack types without requiring constant manual updates. These combined methods enable modern WAFs to stay ahead of new threats and keep your applications safe.
Place your WAFs at the very edge of your cloud setup, right before any traffic hits your application servers. This way, every request gets checked and filtered out. Cloud-native WAF services are super convenient since they easily fit into your existing setup, often just needing a quick DNS change or working with your load balancer. This makes deployment a breeze and cuts down on the hassles.
Begin by utilizing the pre-made rules provided by your WAF vendor to swiftly tackle common vulnerabilities. This approach lays a strong security foundation right from the start. Once that’s established, develop your own rules that are specifically designed to meet the unique needs of your application and business processes, ensuring that your security measures align with how your system operates.
Use WAF rules to guard against newly found vulnerabilities while your dev teams sort out long-term fixes. This helps close the gap between when a vulnerability is revealed and when a patch gets applied.
You can quickly roll out emergency rules when critical CVEs pop up, stopping exploitation attempts in their tracks before attackers get a chance to mess with your systems. This gives you some breathing room to test and deploy application patches safely, so your teams can take their time and not rush under the stress of an attack.
Web applications represent the public face of cloud infrastructure and are constantly targeted by attack attempts. Understanding these vectors is essential for building effective defenses.
SQL injection remains one of the most dangerous vulnerabilities, allowing attackers to manipulate database queries through malicious input. Successful exploitation can expose entire databases, modify data, or execute unauthorized administrative operations.
Cross-Site Scripting, or XSS, is a security issue that happens when attackers slip malicious scripts into websites you normally trust. Once those scripts run in your browser, things can go wrong fast. Your session tokens could be stolen, you might get redirected to a fake website, or malware could be installed without you even noticing.This is why understanding how to check if your website has been hacked becomes essential, as XSS attacks often lead to hidden compromises. XSS comes in two main types: stored and reflected. Both can cause serious headaches for anyone responsible for maintaining an application's security.
API abuse occurs when attackers go after the links between modern microservices. They also search for weak spots in authentication, including excessive data exposure, rate limit issues, and injection vulnerabilities. As more people use APIs, the risk of these attacks gets higher.
Credential stuffing leverages stolen username-password pairs from data breaches to gain unauthorized access through automated login attempts. With password reuse remaining common, these attacks succeed against poorly protected authentication systems. Just so you know, the fuel for these attacks (massive databases of compromised credentials) is frequently traded and sold on dark web marketplaces.
This vector highlights why organizational security depends on individual vigilance; strengthening personal account security is a critical first line of defense. Employees can protect both themselves and corporate assets by following a fundamental online privacy checklist.
Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerabilities enable attackers to execute arbitrary code on cloud servers, often due to unpatched software, insecure deserialization, or weaknesses in dependencies. RCE poses the most significant risk for web applications, frequently resulting in complete system compromise.
Zero Trust principles assume no user, device, or network should be inherently trusted, even inside the cloud perimeter.Micro-segmentation strengthens cloud security by dividing infrastructure into isolated zones, each protected by strict access controls. This approach ensures that if one microservice is compromised, the attacker cannot easily move laterally to other systems. Configure network security groups and policies to allow only the communication that is absolutely necessary.
Apply micro-segmentation at multiple levels. Within VPCs, set up subnet-level segmentation using firewall rules between application tiers. For containerized environments, use Kubernetes network policies to restrict communication between pods. At the application layer, service mesh policies should define precisely which services can communicate with each other.
Identity-based access control adds another layer of protection by verifying every request, no matter its origin. Enforce strong authentication for all human and machine identities that interact with cloud resources.
Visibility into attack patterns enables rapid response before significant damage occurs.
● Monitor key metrics using cloud-native tools
● Display requests per second, error rates, latency percentiles, and geographic distribution on dashboards
● Set alerts for anomalies: sudden traffic spikes, unusual geographic sources, increased error rates, or slow response times
● Combine multiple signals to reduce false positives while ensuring genuine attacks trigger notifications
● Aggregate logs from WAFs, cloud provider security services, application logs, and authentication systems
● Use correlation rules to identify attack patterns spanning multiple systems
Proactive security measures reduce attack surface and limit blast radius when breaches occur. Conduct penetration testing quarterly against cloud infrastructure and applications. Use automated vulnerability scanning tools continuously, prioritizing and remediating critical findings within defined SLAs.
Implement bug bounty programs inviting security researchers to identify vulnerabilities in exchange for rewards. External perspectives often uncover issues internal teams overlook.
Ensure timely deployment of security updates. Cloud infrastructure introduces complexity—patches needed for container images, serverless functions, virtual machines, managed services, and application dependencies.
Automate patching where possible. Use infrastructure-as-code to define golden images with latest patches, rolling out updates through continuous deployment pipelines. For managed services, understand your cloud provider's patching schedule and responsibilities.
Review IAM policies regularly, removing unnecessary permissions. Implement time-bound access for elevated privileges, requiring re-authentication for sensitive operations.
Disable unused services and ports. Cloud environments default to secure configurations, but misconfigurations during deployment often introduce vulnerabilities. Use cloud security posture management tools to continuously audit configurations against best practices.
Protect information even when other defenses fail. Encrypt data in transit using TLS 1.3 for all connections. Encrypt data at rest using cloud provider key management services. Implement encryption at the application layer for highly sensitive data requiring defense-in-depth.
Defending cloud infrastructure against DDoS and web application attacks requires layered defenses combining cloud-native protections, specialized security tools, and operational best practices.
The threat landscape continues evolving with attacks growing in sophistication and scale. Organizations must adopt defense-in-depth strategies addressing network, application, and identity layers simultaneously. Automation and continuous monitoring enable rapid threat detection and response at cloud scale.
Cloud providers offer powerful security tools, but effective protection requires proper configuration, ongoing management, and integration with broader security strategies. Combine provider services with specialized third-party solutions addressing gaps in coverage.
Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are for reference only and don't necessarily represent the official views of Alibaba Cloud.
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