When traffic becomes an attack
Traffic is usually a good thing. Until it makes your site unusable. DDoS attacks aren't new, but they are becoming faster, smarter and more aggressive.
In this blog, we break down what a DDoS attack is, what it does to your site and what you can do to prevent or minimize the damage. Including how we anticipate and mitigate this risk at Forge.
What is a DDoS attack?
DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. The goal: flood your site or server with so much traffic that it becomes unavailable to real users.
A DDoS attack sends thousands of simultaneous requests from compromised devices to overwhelm your site. These can be botnets or even legitimate servers exploited through misconfigurations. Some attacks rely on brute force, others target specific vulnerabilities like login forms or search functions.
Types of DDoS attacks include:
- Volumetric: pure overload. Flooding your bandwidth or servers.
- Protocol attacks: exploiting flaws in TCP/IP or DNS.
- Application layer (layer 7): hitting specific features or actions within your app.
The outcome is the same: slowdowns or full outages.
What is the impact on your site?
Immediate effects of a DDoS attack:
- Your website becomes slow or completely unreachable
- Customers can't log in, buy products or access information
- Your teams are forced into reactive mode
- Brand damage due to poor user experience
- Unexpected costs from server overload, mitigation or recovery
And even after the attack stops, caching issues, stuck sessions or corrupted data can continue to cause trouble.
Can any site be targeted?
Yes. DDoS attacks don't just hit banks or governments anymore.
We regularly see attacks on:
- E-commerce during promotions or seasonal peaks
- Campaign websites in the spotlight
- SaaS platforms in competitive or regulated markets
- Political or activist content
Sometimes it's targeted. Sometimes random. But the risk is always real.
How do you protect your website?
There is no magic button. But you can take real steps to minimize risk and limit disruption.
Core practices:
- Use a CDN like Cloudflare or Fastly to filter and absorb traffic
- Enable rate limiting on your APIs and high-risk endpoints
- Isolate public traffic from internal services or admin layers
Advanced setups:
- Apply WAF rules to block known attack patterns
- Actively monitor traffic logs for anomalies
- Set up autoscaling and health checks with cloud infrastructure
The goal: build platforms that can absorb or reroute attacks, not just collapse under them.
How we handle it at Forge
At Forge, we design for resilience. DDoS mitigation is part of our baseline. It’s not an extra layer but a core feature.
Here’s what we put in place:
- CDN integration with fine-tuned caching by content type
- Edge protection using firewall rules and threat intel sources
- Rate limiting on logins, search endpoints and forms
- Monitoring with alerts for sudden spikes or suspicious patterns
- Default fallback pages and graceful error handling under stress
We test infrastructure under load and scale it to match your platform’s needs.
Quick checklist: are you prepared?
- Do you use a CDN and is it correctly configured?
- Is rate limiting or throttling active on key endpoints?
- Are requests hitting the right layers, or bypassing filters?
- Do you know what happens when traffic spikes?
- Who owns mitigation if something happens?
In summary
DDoS attacks are unpredictable. But with the right setup, they are manageable.
At Forge, we build platforms that stay up. Even when it gets messy.
Want to assess your current setup? We’re happy to help. Because staying online should not be a gamble.