Tech

Why your website should always have DDoS protection

Published

5 years ago

August 2, 2021

Over the past decade, websites have become increasingly important for businesses. In fact, businesses without a website often find it difficult to grow outside of their local customers. A website can help businesses reach a greater demographic and number of customers. In some cases, websites can go global and reach millions of customers around the world.

Since a website will be dealing with such a large number of customers, its security becomes a prime necessity. A website that isn’t safe to use will almost certainly be a target for cyberattacks. Cyberattacks can cripple websites and make business websites vulnerable and unsafe for customers.

Maintaining a safe website is very important. Many businesses have lost customers because they weren’t able to maintain the security of their websites. There are various ways to create a safe website. The easiest is to comply with HTTPS. However, most modern websites automatically comply with these rules.

HTTPS is not perfect. It does make your website secure, but your website is still vulnerable to cyber-attacks. One of these attacks is DDoS. DDoS attacks can completely cripple your website and put your user’s sensitive information at risk. In this article, we will discuss what DDoS attacks are and how DDoS protection will help you protect your website.

What is a DDoS attack?

A Distributed Denial of Service attack is a malicious attack that attempts to disrupt the normal working of a server by overwhelming it. In simple terms, a DDoS attack aims to cripple your website’s server and overwhelm it by flooding it with fake Internet traffic sent across from hacked devices. These devices are unsuspecting computers with botnets installed that can send out thousands of server requests every second with the aim to cripple your perfectly fine website.

How do DDoS attacks work?

To pull off a DDoS attack, the attacker infects internet-connected devices with malware that can remotely be controlled by them. They then use these malware to send multiple requests to a particular website’s server, slowing it down and, in severe cases crippling the website.

Since DDoS attacks are carried out through malware on random remote computers, it is near impossible to locate the source of these attacks as they disguise themselves as normal traffic. However, there are some ways you can detect if you are being targeted by DDoS attacks.

The simplest way is through traffic analytics tools. These are some telltale signs that you are being targeted:

Abnormal traffic surge
A lot of traffic originating from the same IP address or range
Unexplained traffic surges on particular web pages
Unnatural traffic patterns; for example, traffic surges every 15 minutes

Protecting against DDoS attacks

DDoS protection is very important for a business website. Business websites often deal with a lot of sensitive information from their customers. If afflicted with a DDoS attack, a website can be weakened and can even stop working.

The main goal of DDoS attacks is to cripple your user’s access. It is really harmful to your customers’ user experience. When your website server gets hit with a DDoS, it is also vulnerable to other attacks, and DDoS is often the entry point for other incriminating attacks that can be used to steal user information.

It is crucial that business websites are protected against DDoS attacks. DDoS attacks also target the mission-critical business applications that your organization relies on to manage daily operations, such as email, salesforce automation, CRM, and many others. Additionally, other industries, such as manufacturing, pharma and healthcare, have internal web properties that the supply chain, and other business partners rely on for daily business operations.

Here’s how you can protect against DDoS attacks:

Know your audience: Use traffic analysis tools and learn the traffic patterns around your website. Know where your visitors are from and know what times they usually use your website.
Have a cybersecurity team in place: Keep a team ready to respond to DDoS or other cyber attacks to protect your website. Treat DDoS attacks as catastrophic incidents and be prepared for them at all times.
Security measures: Restrict access to your servers for everyone except the people working with them. Even on your website, keep access restricted to non-administrators.
Use CDNs: For business websites with worldwide clients, a CDN is a great way to mitigate a DDoS attack. CDNs cache your websites on localized servers, limiting damage to the geographical source of DDoS attacks and protecting your main server automatically.
Understand the warning signs: DDoS attacks have certain symptoms. The erratic traffic pattern, network slowdown, increased load times, unexplained shutdown, etc. are dead giveaways for DDoS attacks. Use these warning signs in case you are being attacked and shut down the source asap.

If you are a small business, try creating your website with a reputable website building software. Website building software often have built-in DDoS security measures and CDNs that automatically protect your website from such cyber attacks.

The good news is that DDoS attacks form a significant part of all cyber attacks. Almost 60% of cyber attacks are usually attempted Distributed Denial of service attacks meaning that your cybersecurity becomes significantly easier if you can protect against DDoS attacks.

Summing up

DDoS attacks are a significant threat for a business website. It is even more significant if your business is in the financial industry. Between 2017 and 2019, 40% of all financial institutions were hit by DDoS attacks.

They survived because they had planned DDoS protection as a part of their disaster mitigation planning. The second most common targets for DDoS attacks are online eCommerce stores and more. Both financial and eCommerce websites tend to deal with a customer’s critical financial information.

An unprotected website would crumple under a powerful DDoS attack and might end up losing crucial customer data. Protect your website with DDoS and keep your customer’s information safe and never lose your website traffic. Get on with it today!

Tech

CypherFace Targets Payment Fraud with Pre-Transaction Biometric Verification

Published

22 mins ago

February 4, 2026

Jonathan Grilli

Photo courtesy of CypherFace

A U.S.-based fintech company has deployed a facial biometric system that verifies user identity before digital payments are processed. CypherFace, which began commercial operations in 2024, is positioning its technology as a proactive defense against payment fraud that now costs billions annually.

Founder Syed Samir Hassan said the company developed the platform in response to the limitations of fraud detection systems that identify problems after transactions have already occurred. “Traditional fraud tools are reactive by design. They analyze patterns and flag suspicious activity, but the money has often already moved. We’re stopping it before the transaction completes,” Hassan said.

The Fraud Problem

Digital payment fraud has grown substantially despite existing security measures. Payment fraud in the European Economic Area increased to €4.2 billion in 2024, up 17% from 2023, according to data from the European Central Bank and European Banking Authority. Credit transfer fraud alone saw a 24% increase.

Synthetic identity fraud, which involves creating fictitious identities using combinations of real and fabricated personal information, has become particularly problematic. False identity cases increased 60% in 2024 compared to the previous year. These synthetic identities often pass initial verification checks because they use legitimate data elements.

Hassan said CypherFace was designed specifically to address this threat vector. “Synthetic identities work because they look clean on paper. They pass KYC checks. They build credit histories. But they can’t pass a live biometric verification tied to a real person. That’s the fundamental flaw we exploit.“

The company reports that fraudsters increasingly use AI-generated documents and deepfake technology to bypass security systems. CypherFace’s liveness detection technology is designed to identify these sophisticated spoofing attempts during the authentication process.

How the Technology Works

CypherFace provides businesses with an API that integrates into payment infrastructure. When a user initiates a transaction, the system prompts for facial verification. The technology captures and encrypts a facial scan, then applies AI-driven liveness detection to confirm a physically present individual is authorizing the payment.

The system processes the verification in real time without storing raw biometric data. Facial scans are converted into encrypted, non-reversible hashes. The platform returns only a verification result to the merchant, indicating whether the transaction should proceed.

“We designed this to be invisible to legitimate users and impossible for fraudsters,” Hassan said. “A real customer takes two seconds to verify. A criminal using a stolen card or synthetic identity can’t get past the liveness check. The math is simple.“

Deployment and Results

An e-commerce payment processor deployed CypherFace across its checkout infrastructure in late 2024. The processor was experiencing elevated chargeback rates driven by card-not-present fraud. Within 45 days of implementation, CypherFace flagged more than 1,200 fraudulent transactions that had previously bypassed existing security layers.

The integration reduced chargebacks by 62% in the monitored segment. The processor reported improved merchant satisfaction as legitimate transactions experienced minimal additional friction. The company has since expanded CypherFace to additional merchant accounts.

Hassan noted that the technology addresses a specific gap in payment security. “Most fraud prevention happens at the network level or through transaction monitoring. We’re adding a layer that asks a simple question: is the person trying to make this payment actually who they claim to be? If they’re not, the payment doesn’t happen.“

Market Expansion

CypherFace currently operates in the United States and is preparing to expand into Canada and Mexico in 2026. The company is targeting payment processors, merchant acquirers, and platforms with high transaction volumes and elevated fraud exposure.

Hassan said the company sees demand from businesses struggling with the cost of chargebacks and fraud losses. “Every fraudulent transaction costs more than the transaction value when you factor in chargeback fees, lost merchandise, and reputational damage. Businesses are looking for solutions that actually prevent fraud rather than just detect it after the fact.“

The fintech sector has broadly adopted biometric authentication, with major banks and digital financial platforms using facial recognition and fingerprint scanning for account access and transaction authorization. CypherFace is focusing specifically on payment verification rather than account login.

“We’re not trying to replace existing security. We’re adding a verification layer at the most critical point in the transaction flow,” Hassan said. “When money is about to move, we make sure the right person is authorizing it. Everything else is secondary to that.“