Stop DDoS attacks before they take you down

The best approach here is to download your server logs and use a free tool like HTTP logs viewer to identify problem IPs and access patterns. Look for patterns in the attack:

✔ Are all the IPs coming from the same country?
✔ Do they share a common prefix?
✔ Is the attack targeting a single, unimportant page?

If you spot a pattern, you can block the attack effectively.

Using .htaccess to block traffic

If your website runs on apache, you can modify the .htaccess file to block malicious IPs.

Blocking a single IP address

Order Allow,Deny
Deny from 192.168.1.100
Allow from all

This prevents 192.168.1.100 from accessing your site.

Blocking multiple IPs

Order Allow,Deny
Deny from 192.168.1.100
Deny from 192.168.1.101
Deny from 203.0.113.50
Allow from all

Blocking an entire IP range

To block all IPs in a range (e.g., 192.168.1.*):

Order Allow,Deny
Deny from 192.168.1
Allow from all

For a broader range:

Deny from 192.168

This blocks 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255.

Blocking based on user-agent (bot mitigation)

If a botnet is behind the attack, block specific user-agents:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} BadBot|EvilScraper [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

Blocking a specific page

If the attack targets a single, unimportant page:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /attacked [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

These steps should help mitigate most small to mid-sized DDoS attacks.

If the above steps don't stop the attack, it's time for professional protection.