Skip to content

Commit 679b476

Browse files
[DDoS Protection] update FAQ (#22999)
* update ddos faq * typos * Apply suggestions from code review Co-authored-by: ranbel <[email protected]> --------- Co-authored-by: ranbel <[email protected]>
1 parent 760f0dc commit 679b476

File tree

1 file changed

+8
-4
lines changed

1 file changed

+8
-4
lines changed

src/content/docs/ddos-protection/frequently-asked-questions.mdx

Lines changed: 8 additions & 4 deletions
Original file line numberDiff line numberDiff line change
@@ -130,23 +130,27 @@ No. Since 2017, Cloudflare offers [free, unmetered, and unlimited DDoS protectio
130130

131131
## How does DDoS Protection determine whether a SYN flood attack is mitigated by `dosd` or Advanced TCP Protection?
132132

133-
Cloudflare mitigates SYN flood packets statelessly in `dosd` or using [DDoS managed rules](/ddos-protection/managed-rulesets/) when it detects a pattern that indicates that the packet is fake.
133+
DDoS [managed rules](/ddos-protection/managed-rulesets/) detect and mitigate attacks by finding commonality between attack packets and generating a real-time fingerprint to mitigate the attack.
134134

135-
When SYN flood packets are highly randomized or indistinguishable from legitimate packets, Cloudflare uses [Advanced TCP Protection](/ddos-protection/advanced-ddos-systems/overview/advanced-tcp-protection/) to protect your site.
135+
When the attacks are highly randomized and DDoS managed rules are unable to detect a common pattern among the attack packets, [Advanced TCP Protection](/ddos-protection/advanced-ddos-systems/overview/advanced-tcp-protection/) uses its stateful TCP flowtracking capabilities to determine whether or not packets are legitimate. Advanced TCP Protection also mitigates simpler TCP-based attacks.
136+
137+
Advanced TCP Protection is only necessary and available to [Magic Transit](/magic-transit/) customers. For [Spectrum](/spectrum/) and our HTTP services, we leverage the reverse proxy to mitigate sophisticated randomized TCP-based DDoS attacks.
136138

137139
---
138140

139141
## How does Cloudflare handle hyper-localized DDoS attacks that may aim to overwhelm a specific Point of Presence (PoP)?
140142

141-
Cloudflare uses a combination of intelligent traffic engineering, global anycast, and real-time, autonomous DDoS mitigation to handle hyper-localized DDoS attacks — even those that may temporarily exceed the capacity of a specific Point of Presence (PoP).
143+
Hyper-localized DDoS attacks are attacks that target specific PoPs or data centers from botnet nodes that are close to those locations in an attempt to overwhelm them and cause an outage or service disruptions.
144+
145+
However, Cloudflare's defense approach is resilient to these attacks and uses a combination of intelligent traffic engineering, global Anycast, and real-time, autonomous DDoS mitigation to handle hyper-localized DDoS attacks — even those that may temporarily exceed the capacity of a specific Point of Presence (PoP).
142146

143147
### Global Anycast Network
144148

145149
Anycast allows multiple servers (PoPs) to share the same IP address, and the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing system ensures user traffic is routed to the nearest or lowest-cost node.
146150

147151
#### Process
148152

149-
When one PoP is overwhelmed due to a local DDoS flood or as a result of limited capacity, BGP route propagation can be adjusted to shift traffic away from that PoP. Cloudflare can also withdraw BGP announcements from specific peers or upstreams to force traffic to reroute through better-equipped PoPs. Because DDoS traffic originates from multiple geographic regions, Anycast and traffic engineering distributes the attack across Cloudflare’s larger 348 Tbps Anycast network to reduce the burden on a single PoP.
153+
When one PoP is overwhelmed due to a local DDoS flood or as a result of limited capacity, BGP route propagation can be adjusted to shift traffic away from that PoP. Cloudflare can also withdraw BGP announcements from specific peers or upstreams to force traffic to reroute through better-equipped PoPs. Because DDoS traffic originates from multiple geographic regions, Anycast and traffic engineering distributes the attack across [Cloudflare's full capacity Anycast network](https://www.cloudflare.com/network/) to reduce the burden on a single PoP.
150154

151155
### Intelligent Traffic Engineering
152156

0 commit comments

Comments
 (0)