HELP! My client got a DDOS Attack! Need advice
-
Here the setup:
-
Server is hosted inhouse. It got attacked using a DDOS from 20+ IP addresses spoofing in different counries. Our server overloaded and didn't work anymore.
-
URL is registered at GoDaddy.
-
Signed up at Dreamhost. We pointed DNS to Dreamhost successfully.
-
Attacks kept coming and messed up other sites on the Dreamhost shared server. We didn't know we were being followed at first. We originally thought they were attacking the IP address on our inhouse server.
-
Dreamhost noticed the attack and put us on a seperate IP and disabled our URL until the attacks 'stopped'.
MY QUESTION IS:
What do I do if they don't stop? Close shop? 99% of the business is internet driven. This has to be the blackest Blackhat SEO ever.
-
-
Thanks for sharing GKLA, Very useful information . Thanks you all!
-
Take a look at this option: http://www.cloudflare.com/features-security
-
These IP were spoofing from many countries. They would disappear in minutes. Anyway, we found the main IPs that were attacking. YES YOU ARE RIGHT about identifying the one common factor. At 1st we thought blocking IPs would work, but when that didn't work, we started blocking the 'sytle' they were using.
-
It looks like you got this resolved. We went through something similar many years ago but we were lucky because our website is for the US only. The attack was coming in from China, Russia and several other European countries.
We simply blocked all countries except the US, Mexico and Canada in our Firewall.
You just need to identify the one common factor in the attack and filter that out through your firewall.
-
Update:
Switched to Amazon Cloud and got Amazon involved. They helped out by providing some tools. Basically we filtered the attacks by not accepting IPs who were transferring a certain amount of packets. Woot Woot! We have been up and running now for about 6 days with no problem. All I know is that the attacker had a browser with a Russian Language. The site Ship Car Overseas survived!
-
Update:
We dropped Dreamhost.com since they couldn't help. They were useless in this area.
We copied the DB and pointed the URL in GoDaddy to our new host at Amazon Cloud. Well, the DDoS attacks a still coming in. The site was up for a short while (I'm talking minutes) then refreshed the pages and the ISP says the site wasn't there anymore. Damn, this attacker is relentless. I will be enabling the Amazon Balance Loader tomorrow. If this renders the DDoS attack ineffective, then Amazon solves it. But I won't find out until tomorrow.
-
Here is what dreamhost said:
" it does indeed look like you were getting attacked yet again. Unfortunately there isn't much you or myself can do in these cases.. I've disabled your domain again and will re-enable it in a week. I'm hoping that by then, the attacker has given up and moved on. If this is not the case, I regret to say that you will need to find hosting elsewhere as we do not offer a DDoS protection service. Please let me know if you have any questions.Thanks! Jason Y "
In conclusion dreamhost can't help.
-
Thanks there cowboy. Dreamhost still has not replied. I think I'll keep everything tracked here just in case other people run into this DDOS problem in the future. So far this is what has happened:
- Dreamhost disabled our URL and we are still waiting for their response.
- I took the Database and transfered all files to a new domain.
- Launching a massive Adwords Campaign to make up for the loss of 3 days revenue.
The reason I decided to transfer the DB to a new domain was I don't want to be a sitting duck if Dreamhost says they can't help. I am pretty sure they can help, but I put into place my plan B just in case. I'll keep everyone posted.
-
Hey again Francisco, upon rereading your question, it looks like I went off half cocked when I answered it. I missed that you had solved the immediate problem and that you were wondering what course of action to takke if they don't stop. the attack
If someone continues deliberately attacking your site I'm thinking the only course of action is to change your domain name. It's not a good solution so I hope someone else chimes in with a better one.
-
Hello Francisco: Really sorry to hear bout this. Bummer!
I've never personally experienced a DDOS attack ,so I called the web host I use to get his advice. He said that Dreamhost should be able to offer some kind of DDOS mitigation service.He seemed surprised that they weren't able to block it if it was coming in from only 20+ IP addresses.
He also said that if the attack continued, they'd probably not want the account after a certain point. He seemed surprised that they weren't able to block it if it was coming in from only 20+ IP addresses.
One of the main reasons I use him is that he's always been helpful when I've had problems. He said that he'd be willing to host you for a month to see if he could help. His company name is TRK hosting
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is there proof that disavowing backlinks in GSC help to boost rankings in Google?
Hi Guys Let's say you have a website and you got some questionable back links or lower quality ones. Does anyone have proof that after disavowing back links helped in the rankings or had some positive effects? I am concerned that Google will place our website on their radar and instead possibly demote it or smth. Lastly, if disavowing is the way to go what criteria do you use to disavow backlinks? So if you get questionable back links over time, should you disavow ongoing as well? If so how often? Cheers John
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | whiteboardwiz0 -
More or Less pages helps in SEO?
Hi all, I have gone through some articles where less pages are suggested and they claim that they will be favoured by Google. I'm not sure as with limited pages, we can only target limited keywords. There might be threat from Google in-terms of doorway pages for more pages. But one of our competitor has many pages like dedicated page for every keyword. And their website ranks high and good for all keywords. I can see three pages created with differnet phrases for same on keyword. If less pages are good, how come this works for our competitor? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vtmoz0 -
I would like opinions on Brian Dean's training courses and his advice -- is it useful?
I would like opinions on Brian Dean's training courses and his advice -- has anyone used it successfully? Is it worth the cost? And useful?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | marketingdepartment.ch1 -
Has our site been attacked?
Hello fellow mozers! I am having a problem you might be able to help me with and any thoughts on the issue will be greatly appreciated. Yesterday, I received an automated monthly report from Quill Engage, a tool that fetches data from Google Analytics and generates reports in a narrative format. Last month's 'referral traffic' section indicates two incredibly spammy websites driving more than 200 sessions to our website. Naturally, I checked out GWT and Open Site Explorer but couldn't find any traces of such activity. Futhermore, all our metrics seem ok. Can this possibly be a negative SEO attack that was only traced by the aforementioned tool? Can you propose any other way to test this and make sure we're not being attacked?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SMD_0 -
Help identifying cause for total rank loss
Hello, Last week I noticed one of my pages decreased in rank for a particular query from #8 to #13. Although I had recently made a few minor edits to the page (added an introductory paragraph and left-column promo to increase word count), I thought the reason for the decrease was due to a few newly ranked pages that I hadn't seen before. In an attempt to regain my original position, I tried to optimize the meta title for the singular form of the word. After making this change, I fetched and rendered the page as Google (status = partial) and submitted the page for indexing (URL only, not including on-page links). Almost immediately after submitting, the page dropped from #13 out of the top 50. I've since changed the meta title back to what it was originally and let Google crawl and index the page on its own, but the page is still not in the top 50. Could the addition of the page description and left column promos tipped the scales of keyword stuffing? If I change everything back to the way it was originally, is it reasonable to think I should regain my original position below the new pages? Any insights would be greatly appreciated!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jmorehouse0 -
How did I get over 1000 backlinks in less then a month? help?
Hi Guys I'm a newbie and just started my website, im wondering if im reading this correctly, i use a tool called my seo tools and its telling me my website zenory.co.nz has over 1600 backlinks, this is scary since the site is only 5months old and i didn't see this till at least today and i check my sites backlinks on a regular basis. However when I check with moz it says I only have 2? I'm a little confused. Any advice here? Much appreciated Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | edward-may0 -
Do rss feeds help seo in 2013?
I have seen answers for this back in 2012 but as we all now things have changed in 2013. My question is Do rss feeds help seo in 2013? Or does google see it as duplicate content (I see that the moz site has RSS ...)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Llanero0 -
Black Hat? Is it really possible my new client paid someone to SEO the word "here"?
I just took on a client and first thing I saw in Webmaster Tools was the dreaded "Unnatural Link Patterns" message dated Apr 7th, 2012. MajesticSEO is reporting 212 backlinks, OSE is reporting 251. Nothing out of the ordinary, in fact they only anchor text is their brand. However, we then ran an SEO PowerSuite Crawl and found 429 backlinks with 78.1% of links use the anchor text "here" and 77.9% of all links point to the same URL. If this is indeed true I can see why they got the message from Google. The company has admitted they hired a service to do SEO for $299/mo for several months but when they saw no results they quit. Could this company really have gone after "here". It not, I can't find anything that would give them the message they got from Google Webmaster Tools.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Dweber0