In today’s digitised world, users expect fast, always-on access to digital services. Meanwhile, attackers evolve tactics to take applications offline, disrupt operations, or mask deeper intrusions.
Traditional defences rarely respond fast enough or scale effectively to meet multi-vector threats. Modern DDoS attacks target infrastructure in real time and exploit vulnerabilities within seconds. They disrupt uptime, degrade performance, and expose critical systems. Static signatures and manual responses fall short.
Security teams now deploy automated, always-on defences that block even zero-day attacks without disrupting legitimate traffic. Attack volumes continue to grow, with some now exceeding 650 million packets per second, and conventional systems struggle to keep pace. Speed and scalability have become non-negotiable.
With threat actors employing more sophisticated methods, DDos attacks globally are increasing in size and intensity – every month we see reports of record-breaking hyper-volume attacks.
What do you need to know about the scourge of recent attacks?
Time to mitigation defines resilience
Firstly, DDoS attacks don’t need hours to cause harm, they take just seconds. Even brief service disruptions lead to lost revenue, poor user experience, and damage to customer trust. High-traffic platforms feel the impact almost instantly.
Time to mitigation sets the benchmark for effective defence. Many providers advertise aggressive mitigation speeds, but only under ideal or pre-configured conditions. Real-world attacks behave unpredictably and evolve rapidly to bypass rigid defences.
Imperva, a Thales company, enforces a 3-second end-to-end mitigation SLA across all attack types. Its architecture automates detection and response, using globally distributed infrastructure to reduce delay and maintain uptime.
Architect for scale, not just speed
Secondly, attackers are increasingly going beyond bandwidth. They target APIs, applications, and distributed services to cause broader disruption. Many high-volume campaigns serve as the first phase of multi-stage intrusion, diverting attention while attackers steal data or escalate access.
Security teams now need to ensure their systems can respond automatically, route traffic intelligently, and absorb pressure without performance loss. These platforms inspect traffic in real time, detect anomalies, and scrub malicious flows—without touching legitimate users.
Visibility is critical
Thirdly, visibility also matters. Teams must quickly distinguish between blunt-force DDoS and targeted campaigns that use DDoS as a diversion. Contextual detection enables faster, focused response.
Legacy systems delay response, generate noise, and depend on manual input. Modern platforms close that gap by unifying detection, mitigation, and analysis into a single flow.
Organisations that run customer-facing platforms or real-time services prioritise infrastructure that makes fast decisions under pressure.
DDoS attacks are one of the most significant and growing threats in cybersecurity. As new technologies evolve, is your organisation’s defence up to date and ready to counteract the new challenges?
Download the full whitepaper to find out about a defence model that performs under real-world attack conditions, and what sets it apart from legacy systems.