Understanding DDoS Protection & Firewalls

The internet is a warzone, and your website is a target. Whether it's bored hackers, shady competitors, or automated bots, someone out there wants to take your site down. That’s where DDoS protection and firewalls come in. At Media Giant Hosting, we’ve got the defenses to keep your website safe and online.

What is a DDoS Attack?

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is when a flood of traffic—usually from infected computers or bots—overwhelms your website, making it slow or completely unreachable. Think of it like thousands of people rushing into a small shop all at once, preventing real customers from getting in.

DDoS attacks come in different flavors:

• Volumetric Attacks – Overloading your bandwidth with massive amounts of junk traffic.

• Protocol Attacks – Exploiting weaknesses in network protocols to choke server resources.

• Application Layer Attacks – Targeting your actual website (like login pages or search functions) to consume resources and cause downtime.

If left unchecked, a DDoS attack can crash your site, slow it to a crawl, or even get you blacklisted by search engines.

How We Protect Your Site from DDoS Attacks

We don’t mess around when it comes to DDoS protection. Our network has built-in DDoS mitigation that detects and blocks suspicious traffic before it can cause harm.

Here’s how we defend your site:

• Gateway-Level DDoS Protection – Malicious traffic is filtered out before it even reaches your hosting account.

• Traffic Rate Limiting – If a single IP or botnet floods your site with requests, we automatically block them.

• Fail2Ban Protection – Repeated failed login attempts? We shut that down fast.

• Automatic Blacklisting – Known bad IPs and bot networks get blocked before they can attack.

These systems work in the background, keeping your site online without you lifting a finger.

What is a Firewall, and Why Do You Need One?

A firewall is your website’s first line of defense against cyber threats. It monitors all incoming and outgoing traffic and blocks anything that looks suspicious.

We provide two types of firewalls:

1. Network-Level Firewall (Always On)

• Stops malicious traffic before it reaches your website.

• Blocks common threats like brute-force login attempts and bot scans.

• Shields against protocol-based attacks that target server weaknesses.

2. Web Application Firewall (WAF) (Built Into Your Hosting)

• Protects against SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other website-based attacks.

• Filters requests to prevent hackers from exploiting vulnerabilities in your CMS (like WordPress).

• Always enabled by default to keep your site safe.

Our firewalls act like security guards, checking every visitor before they can enter. If someone shady shows up, they’re turned away before they can do any damage.

What is Fail2Ban, and How Does It Protect You?

Fail2Ban is an automated security tool that monitors login attempts and other actions on your site. If it detects too many failed logins or suspicious behavior from an IP address, it temporarily bans that IP to prevent brute-force attacks.

How Fail2Ban Works:

• Tracks failed login attempts across SSH, FTP, SFTP, and website admin logins.

• If an IP tries and fails too many times, it gets banned for a set period.

• Helps protect against brute-force attacks, botnets, and automated hacking attempts.

• Works silently in the background—keeping the bad guys out without you even noticing.

What to Do If You Get Locked Out by Fail2Ban

Sometimes, legitimate users can accidentally trigger Fail2Ban—especially if they forget their password or mistype it too many times. If you find yourself locked out of your own site:

1. Find Your Public IP Address – Go to WhatIsMyIP or Google “What’s my IP?”

2. Contact Our Support Team – Open a support ticket with your public IP address and let us know you’re locked out.

3. We’ll Unblock You – Our team will whitelist your IP and restore access.

To avoid future lockouts, make sure you:

• Use a password manager to avoid mistyping passwords.

• Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for extra security.

• Keep track of your IP if you’re working from different locations.

What You Need to Do

Good news—you don’t have to do anything. We handle all the DDoS protection, firewalls, and Fail2Ban settings for you. However, here are a few extra steps to further secure your site:

• Use strong passwords and enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA).

• Keep your website updated (WordPress, plugins, themes, etc.).

• Limit login attempts (our systems already block brute-force attacks, but it helps to have an extra layer).

• Disable XML-RPC if not needed – This is a common attack vector for WordPress sites.

Final Thoughts: We’ve Got Your Back

DDoS attacks and hackers aren’t going away anytime soon, but with Media Giant Hosting, you’re protected. Our firewalls, DDoS mitigation, and Fail2Ban keep your site up and running, no matter what the internet throws at it.

Got questions about security? Need extra protection? Open a support ticket, and we’ll help you lock things down.