Protection Against DDoS Attacks
Last updated
A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is a malicious attempt to overwhelm a server or network with a flood of internet traffic. At the DNS level, a DDoS attack can prevent your domain from resolving, making your website and other online services inaccessible to legitimate users.
DNSimple provides DDoS protection on all plans, at no additional cost and without any special configuration. It is automatically enabled for all domains.
How our DDoS protection works
DNSimple’s DDoS defense system acts as a protective layer that sits in front of all our name servers. When a DNS query is sent, our anycast network automatically routes the request to one of our points of presence (PoPs), usually a nearby one. At this point, the request is analyzed before it is allowed to reach our authoritative name servers.
Think of it like a security checkpoint:
- Initial screening: All incoming traffic is continuously analyzed for potential malicious patterns and anomalies, including signature detection at the cache layer.
- Legitimate traffic: Legitimate requests pass through. The cache layer answers them when it already has the answer, and DNSimple’s authoritative name servers answer the rest.
- Malicious traffic: Malicious requests are detected and blocked at the PoP level, preventing them from consuming the resources of our name servers and disrupting service for others.
Because anycast spreads queries across many PoPs and each PoP filters its own traffic, attack traffic is blocked close to where it enters the network, before it reaches the name servers.
Multi-provider protection
DNSimple builds and operates its own cache edge, which runs across two independent infrastructure providers. If one provider has a failure or disruption, only part of the traffic is affected, and DNS responses continue from the remaining PoPs. Anycast routing moves the traffic automatically, with no changes needed on your side.
If you would like to learn more about how this redundancy protects your domains, please contact us and we will be happy to walk you through the details.
Have more questions?
If you have additional questions or need any assistance with your domain security, just contact support, and we will be happy to help. You can also read more about DNS hosting at DNSimple.