Many website administrators wonder, "Why is my website always being attacked?" and "Will moving my website to a high-defense server make it safe?" Behind these questions lies a deeper understanding of cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is a dynamic process of continuous building and adjustment. The root cause of frequent attacks is often not insufficient "hardness" of the defense, but rather that the target is too "obvious," or that there are undetected vulnerabilities in the defense system.
Website attacks typically begin with a few common reasons. Most directly, your website may inherently generate traffic due to the nature of your business. Whether it's e-commerce, finance, gaming, or even a forum with slightly controversial content, it can become a target for specific attackers. Secondly, many attacks are automated and indiscriminate. Attackers use scanning tools to search the internet around the clock, and any publicly exposed IP address may be targeted. If your server is running outdated software with publicly known vulnerabilities (such as unpatched WordPress plugins, older versions of Apache or Nginx), it will attract attack scripts like a beacon in the night. Furthermore, weak passwords, unprotected administrative backends, and program code lacking basic rate limiting measures all open the door for attackers. Attacks have various motives: some aim to steal data, others extort money, and still others simply use your server resources for cryptocurrency mining or as a springboard for further attacks.
So, can DDoS protected servers solve these problems? The answer is: they can solve some, but certainly not all, and understanding what they can and cannot do is crucial. The core value of DDoS protected servers lies in dealing with DDoS attacks. Essentially, it's a pipeline equipped with powerful "cleaning capabilities." When massive amounts of junk traffic (such as DDoS attacks) flood your website, DDoS protected data centers have bandwidth reserves and distributed traffic scrubbing centers far exceeding those of ordinary data centers. At the network entry point, it can identify and discard malicious attack traffic through multi-layered filtering rules, forwarding only legitimate user requests to your actual server. For traffic surges reaching hundreds of Gbps in a short period, this is the only effective defense. From this perspective, if your main pain point is that your website is frequently paralyzed by DDoS attacks, then a DDoS protected server is the right and necessary choice.
However, DDoS protected servers are not invincible. Its "high-defense" feature primarily operates at the network and transport layers (layers 3-4 of the OSI model). Its protection against higher-layer attacks targeting the application itself is very limited. For example, a meticulously crafted SQL injection attack, a credential stuffing attack exploiting business logic vulnerabilities, or a slow HTTP POST attack might appear as "normal" requests to a traffic scrubbing device. Attackers are no longer trying to overwhelm the system with sheer volume; instead, they are posing as ordinary visitors, testing the locks one by one. At this point, the focus of defense must shift from infrastructure to the application itself.
Therefore, a true security solution must be multi-layered. High-defense servers form a solid outer defense line against the most immediate brute-force attacks. But after that, you need a series of application-layer security hardening measures. This includes, but is not limited to: configuring fine-grained access control rules for your web server (such as Nginx) and limiting the request frequency from a single IP address to defend against application-layer DDoS (i.e., CC attacks).
```nginx
# Nginx Configuration Example: Limiting Single IP Request Frequency to Defend Against CC Attacks
http {
# Define a rate-limiting zone named req_zone, allowing 10 requests per second, with a maximum delay of 5 requests per second
limit_req_zone $binary_remote_addr zone=req_zone:10m rate=10r/s;
server {
listen 80;
server_name yourdomain.com;
location / {
# Application rate limiting, burst requests not exceeding 5; if no delay is allowed, a 503 error is returned directly
limit_req zone=req_zone burst=5 nodelay;
proxy_pass http://your_backend;
}
# Special protection for important interfaces such as login, using stricter restrictions
location /api/login {
limit_req zone=req_zone burst=2 nodelay;
proxy_pass http://your_backend;
}
}
}Besides configuring the server, application code security is fundamental. All user input must be treated as untrusted and undergo strict validation, filtering, and parameterization before entering the database or system commands. Regularly updating all software components, using strong passwords and enabling multi-factor authentication, closing unnecessary ports and services, and implementing the principle of least privilege are all basic tasks for building a second line of defense. At the same time, deploying a reliable Web Application Firewall (WAF) is crucial. A WAF acts like a smart filter, deployed before applications, capable of identifying and blocking common attack patterns such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and remote command execution. It complements high-defense servers, one protecting against "floods," the other against "poison needles."
Security construction is also a continuous monitoring and response process. You need to establish an effective log auditing mechanism. Regularly check access logs, paying attention to abnormal patterns, such as intensive scans from a specific country or IP range, or repeated attempts targeting specific vulnerability paths. Set up monitoring alerts so that you are notified immediately when the server experiences abnormal traffic, abnormal CPU and memory consumption, or a large number of erroneous requests.
So, back to the initial question: Can a DDoS protected server solve the problem of a website constantly being attacked? It can resolve availability issues caused by large-scale DDoS attacks, giving you time to deploy deeper defenses and a stable environment. However, it cannot replace a secure and robust application, nor can it replace rigorous operations and maintenance management. A truly secure website should have the following architecture: a DDoS protected server or DDoS protected IP as the traffic scrubbing entry point -> a WAF for application-layer threat filtering -> its own security-hardened and coded servers and applications.
