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Getting Started with Security: AWS Shield to Safeguard Application from DDoS Attacks

By: Author Alex Lim

Posted on

Categories Cybersecurity

Learn how AWS Shield protects your application from DDoS attacks. Discover the benefits of this essential security service and ensure your application’s availability and performance on AWS.

Table of Contents

Question

Which service helps protect your application on AWS from DDOS attacks?

A. Shield
B. GuardDuty
C. Secrets Manager
D. Amazon Inspector

Answer

A. Shield

Explanation

DDOS is a networking attack on an application. Shield is the only service listed that is a network protection service and can help with DDOS attacks.

AWS Shield is the service that helps protect your application on AWS from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. It is a managed DDoS protection service that safeguards applications running on AWS against the most common and frequently occurring network and transport layer DDoS attacks.

Shield provides two tiers of protection:

  1. AWS Shield Standard: This is a free service that automatically protects all AWS customers at no additional cost. It defends against the most common, frequently occurring network and transport layer DDoS attacks.
  2. AWS Shield Advanced: This is a paid service that provides additional protections against more sophisticated and larger DDoS attacks. It offers enhanced features such as real-time visibility into attacks, integration with AWS WAF (Web Application Firewall), and access to a 24/7 DDoS Response Team (DRT) for assistance during an attack.

Key features of AWS Shield include:

  • Always-on detection and automatic inline mitigations to minimize application downtime and latency.
  • Seamless integration with other AWS services, such as Amazon CloudFront, Amazon Route 53, and Elastic Load Balancing.
  • Customizable protection with AWS WAF integration (Shield Advanced).
  • Real-time notifications and attack forensics (Shield Advanced).

By leveraging AWS Shield, you can protect your application from DDoS attacks, ensuring its availability and performance. This service helps maintain the reliability and responsiveness of your application, even in the face of malicious traffic surges.

The other options mentioned in the question serve different purposes:

  • Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that continuously monitors for malicious activity and unauthorized behavior within your AWS accounts and workloads.
  • AWS Secrets Manager is a service that helps you protect secrets needed to access your applications, services, and IT resources.
  • Amazon Inspector is an automated vulnerability management service that helps you assess the security posture of your AWS resources and applications.

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