Blog

As technology becomes more sophisticated, so do cyberattacks. One of the main cyber threats organizations face is distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS). DDoS attacks have impacted companies since the early days of the internet. A DDoS attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt a server's normal flow of traffic by flooding it with internet traffic. The increased traffic flow prevents legitimate users from accessing online sites and services. DDoS attacks particularly impact businesses that provide online services to customers. These companies should use virtual desktop solutions to prevent DDoS attacks from impacting their servers.

What are Virtual Desktops?

Virtual desktops are cloud computing programs that allow users to access their data and files from any device with an internet connection. More organizations are starting to adopt virtual desktops as an alternative to traditional computing environments due to their increased flexibility and security.

Types of DDoS Attacks

There are three main types of DDoS attacks: application layer, protocol, and volume-based attacks.

Application Layer Attacks

The application layer is where the server generates responses to incoming client requests. Hackers send HTTP requests to a server using different IP addresses in an application layer attack. An example of an application layer attack is to keep requesting PDF downloads. The system is unable to detect malicious activity due to the different IP addresses but is still overwhelmed by the traffic.

Protocol Attacks

Protocol attacks are when hackers exhaust a server or its resources, such as firewalls and load balancers. These attacks are measured in packets per second.

Volume-Based Attacks

The goal of volume-based attacks is to overwhelm the bandwidth of the attacked site or server.

How Virtual Desktops Offer Protection Against DDoS Attacks

There are several ways in which organizations can use virtual desktops to prevent various types of DDoS attacks. One way virtual desktops can offer protection from DDoS attacks is that these systems include various firewalls to ensure that malicious actors cannot bypass the system. Many virtual desktop providers also include multi-factor authentication to ensure only authorized users access the company's central server. Also, since virtual desktops are cloud-based, it is more difficult for DDoS attackers to target their servers as opposed to traditional infrastructure environments.