{"id":76707,"date":"2025-11-10T14:32:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T14:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morningtrain.dk\/?p=76707"},"modified":"2026-11-10T14:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T14:32:09","slug":"ddos-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morningtrain.dk\/en\/ddos-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"DDoS attack: what is it, and how do you know if your website is protected enough? Work out your downtime cost and ask your host the right questions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Digitalization<\/p>\n

\n 10. November 2025 ·<\/span> 7 min <\/p>\n

DDoS attack: what is it, and how do you know if your website is protected enough? Work out your downtime cost and ask your host the right questions<\/h1>\n <\/div>\n

A DDoS attack makes a website slow or unavailable by overloading it with traffic from a botnet. No data is stolen, but the downtime costs you. See how the attack works, get a rough estimate of what downtime costs you, and get the questions to ask your hosting provider. <\/p><\/div>

\"DDoS<\/figure>\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n
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\n Indhold\n <\/p>\n \n Why should you worry about DDoS when no data is stolen?\n <\/a>\n \n How does a DDoS attack take a website down?\n <\/a>\n \n How do you find out if your protection is big enough?\n <\/a>\n \n What else do people ask about DDoS attacks?\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n

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DDoS attack<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A DDoS attack is an attempt to make a website, a server or a network service slow or completely unavailable by overloading it with traffic from many infected devices at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also called:<\/strong> Distributed denial of service<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The target is availability, not data. The attacker does not break in. The attacker makes sure your real visitors cannot get in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why should you worry about DDoS when no data is stolen?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A DDoS attack hurts you through downtime: while it lasts, customers cannot buy, log in or find your information. No data is lost, but lost sales, wasted ad spend and annoyed customers are real costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take a Danish online shop that is hit on Black Friday. The site does not respond, and customers cannot pay. No customer data has leaked, and there is nothing to report to the Danish Data Protection Agency. Even so, the most important sales hours of the day are gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DDoS is often confused with other incidents. The difference decides what you need to protect yourself against:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incident<\/th>What happens<\/th>Is data at risk?<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
DDoS attack<\/td>Many devices in a botnet send traffic at the same time, so the site slows down or goes down.<\/td>No. It is about availability.<\/td><\/tr>
Intrusion and data breach<\/td>Someone gains access to systems or data they are not allowed to see.<\/td>Yes. That is the whole point.<\/td><\/tr>
DoS<\/td>Same idea as DDoS, but the traffic comes from a single source. It is easier to block.<\/td>No.<\/td><\/tr>
Traffic spike from a campaign<\/td>Real customers arrive all at once, for example after a newsletter or a TV mention.<\/td>No. It is a capacity problem, not an attack.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Typical targets are ecommerce and other revenue-generating websites, gaming, telecoms, public institutions and forums. The motive can be extortion, activism, competition or simply someone wanting to see if it can be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It matters less if your website does not make money directly and has no users who depend on it. An information site can often live with a few hours of downtime. In that case, your hosting provider’s standard protection is usually enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does a DDoS attack take a website down?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A DDoS attack takes a website down by using up all its capacity: a botnet sends so many simultaneous requests that the bandwidth, connections or server resources run out, and real users are turned away. The attack hits either the network layer or the application layer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A botnet is a network of computers, routers, cameras and other devices infected with malicious software. The owners usually do not know. The attacker controls them as a group and can make them send traffic at the same target at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n