What is a DDoS attack and how can IDS help mitigate it?

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is characterized by overwhelming the target system, such as a website or server, with massive amounts of traffic from multiple sources, making it unavailable to legitimate users. This attack exploits the bandwidth and resources of the target, effectively causing disruptions or complete outages.

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) can play a critical role in mitigating DDoS attacks by monitoring the network traffic and identifying patterns that are indicative of an attack. They can detect sudden spikes in traffic, unusual patterns, or traffic originating from known malicious IP addresses. By analyzing this data, an IDS can alert network administrators to take necessary actions, such as reconfiguring firewalls, adjusting bandwidth limits, or deploying additional countermeasures like rate limiting or blocking malicious traffic. This proactive defense is essential to ensure service continuity for legitimate users during a DDoS attack.