Recently, I had a drink with a few APP buddies and talked about a large-scale DDoS attack they encountered last month, the scene was just like a movie - users suddenly couldn't connect to the service, the background alarms were ringing, and a month's hard work to promote the flow of traffic instantly evaporated, and after repairing it was downgraded by the app store, which resulted in a heavy loss. He poured a mouthful of wine and said, “I should have known that when I first invested more money in the server to prevent a hand, and now I'm regretting all the green intestines.”
This poked me, I've been in this line of work for almost ten years, I've seen too many teams in the security of the heel, always think “wait for the accident and then engage in”, the result is often a crash, the previous work is abandoned. Today I will talk about the APP high defense server to buy those things, this is not only technical work, but also a strategic decision about survival.
Many people think that app security is to add a password, get a firewall, but it is very wrong. Nowadays, network attacks are not small, especially for the application layer of the threat, such as CC attacks (Challenge Collapsar) can simulate massive user requests, directly dragging down your server resources, while the DDoS is more brutal, blocking the bandwidth with garbage traffic, so that you can not even serve the normal user.
My real test found that a daily activity of 100,000 APP, if unprotected, encountered a medium-sized attack may be paralyzed in a few minutes, not to mention data leakage, malicious crawlers and these invisible killers.
The core of the problem is that ordinary servers are like bare bones on the battlefield, the ability to resist pressure is almost zero; and high-defense servers are like wearing armor, which through hardware isolation, traffic cleansing and intelligent scheduling, specializing in dealing with this kind of violent attacks. But the market is a mixed bag of products, choose the wrong one may spend a lot of money but also can not buy peace of mind, so we have to keep our eyes peeled.
optionalAnti-DDoS ServersThe first taboo is to look only at the price to get a bargain.
I have suffered a loss in the early years, cheap choice of a small manufacturer, the results of the protection value of the false standard, really attacked when the customer service can not find people. Now learned from the good, will dig deep from several dimensions: first of all, the protection ability, do not just listen to sales blow “TB level defense”, have to ask for specific indicators, such as whether to cover SYN Flood, HTTP Flood and other common types of attacks, cleaning node distribution in which, how much response delay.
In my experience, reliable vendors can provide real-time traffic charts so that you can see the attack peaks and cleaning effects, which is the real evidence. Secondly, look at the performance match, is your APP IO-intensive or compute-intensive? High-defense servers usually integrate premium bandwidth and redundant hardware, but the configuration has to be tailored. For example, if an e-commerce APP has a surge in traffic during a big promotion, it needs a flexible and scalable CPU and memory, or else it will be stuck in PPT even if the protection is good.
Here insert a hardcore details - protection rules configuration, do not believe that those “one-click to get it done” fool. The real security to polish their own, I commonly use a set of strategies based on Nginx flow restriction and blacklisting, the following is a simplified example, you can put on the server side of the basic protection:
This code sets the API interface to a maximum of 10 requests per second, the burst allows 20, over the IP directly rejected, can effectively mitigate CC attacks. But note that this is only the foundation, the core of the high-defense server is the global network behind it - for example, the traffic cleaning center will filter out the attack traffic before it reaches your server, which requires the provider to have enough node resources and intelligent algorithms.
I have tested several service providers, found that like CDN07 in this piece of work quite fine, their Anycast network can spread the attack to the global nodes, cleaning efficiency of up to 99.9%, and the background report intuitive, even white people can understand the attack trend, suitable for teams who do not want to toss. Of course, this is not an advertisement, purely personal experience, who choose you have to actually test.
Besides the bandwidth and line quality, these days even the CDN have to “prevent teammates” - some cheap service providers share bandwidth, once attacked, it will be the fish in the pond. High-defense servers must be exclusive bandwidth, and access to multi-line BGP (Border Gateway Protocol), to ensure that telecom, Unicom, mobile users have smooth access.
I once helped a video APP migration, the original server to go single-line, cross-network latency soared to 200ms, replaced with multi-line high defense directly after the pressure to 50ms, the user retention rate rose 15%. data comparison is very cruel: ordinary servers in the 100Gbps DDoS basically lie flat, and high-quality high-defense can be carried to the 500Gbps or more, and through redundant power supply and hot backup hardware to ensure 99.95% availability. The availability of 99.95% is guaranteed. This account you have to calculate: a downtime may lose millions of revenue, and high defense investment is often just a fraction.
Vendor selection, I recommend keeping an eye on the old vendors, they have been baptized by years of attacks, the technical precipitation is more reliable. But don't just look at the official website bragging, go to the technical forum to rummage through the user feedback, or even simulate their own attack test (within the scope of the legal!). The most important thing is that they have a lot of experience in the field. For example, 08Host, I have worked with a few times, their after-sales team response is extremely fast, encounter problems engineers directly pull group support, but also to provide customized protection strategy, this service experience is much stronger than the cold work order system.
However, each one has different characteristics, some are long on high-traffic defense, and some are good at application layer optimization, so you have to pick one according to the APP characteristics. Remember, the contract must state the SLA (service level agreement), including failure compensation and upgrade commitment, black and white to not lose.
Cost control is an art, high defense servers are usually 30%-50% more expensive than the normal type, but don't feel bad - security is supposed to be a paid item.
My approach is layered deployment: high defense for core business, static resources dumped to object storage, and then combined with CDN to share the pressure. This can not only carry the attack, but also to avoid the waste of resources.
Spit a word, some teams in order to save money, waiting to be attacked before the temporary upgrade, the result is double the price but also configuration confusion, purely wrongdoing. It would be better to plan well at the initial stage, such as selecting a flexible program with a monthly fee, and adjusting it at any time according to the traffic. Here to share a configuration example, with Cloud-init automated deployment of high-defense environment, suitable for quick start:
With this combo down, basic security has a framework. But the real value of a high defense server is in the global view it provides - you can see the source, type and trend of attacks in real time, so as to adjust your business strategy. For example, I found that a certain region IP frequent malicious access, targeted to strengthen the geographical blocking, by the way, optimize the CDN cache in the region, but instead to improve the user experience.
Finally, let's talk about mindset. I have seen too many technical responsible person to security as a burden, always think “no attack is earned”, this kind of fluke mentality is the most fatal. Network security is a dynamic game, the means of attack are changing day by day, today is fine does not mean that tomorrow is safe. Selection of high-defense servers, you have to bring the “uncompromising” strength: performance uncompromising, to ensure smooth user experience; protection uncompromising, to deal with possible future upgrades attacks; service uncompromising, the provider must be able to pocket at any time.
My personal opinion is that there are no silver bullets in this business, but solid protection buys you critical time - when an attack comes, you may have a few extra hours for emergency response, and that's enough to save a project.
An app high defense server is not optional, it's standard for modern app development. It's like a moat that allows you to engage in business innovation with peace of mind instead of being on edge all day. If you are still hesitant, you may want to start with a free trial and test the protection effect yourself.
Remember, investing in safety is always more cost-effective than remedying after an accident. In this murky cyber jungle, well-equipped is the only way to go far.