DDoS attacks are one of the biggest threats to game servers. A competitor, disgruntled player, or random attacker can flood your server with traffic and knock it offline for hours. Here is how to protect yourself.
What Is a DDoS Attack
A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack floods your server with massive amounts of traffic from many sources simultaneously. The server cannot handle the volume and becomes unresponsive to legitimate players. It is not hacking your server; it is overwhelming it.
Common motivations for attacking game servers:
- Rival server owners wanting to eliminate competition
- Banned players seeking revenge
- Extortion (pay us or we keep attacking)
- Random targeting for practice or entertainment
Types of Attacks Against Game Servers
Volumetric Attacks: Pure bandwidth flooding. Sends more data than your connection can handle. Even a powerful server goes offline if the network pipe is full.
Protocol Attacks: Exploits weaknesses in network protocols (SYN floods, UDP reflection). Overwhelms the server's ability to process connections.
Application Layer Attacks: Sends valid-looking game queries that are expensive to process. Harder to distinguish from real traffic.
Game servers are especially vulnerable because they run on UDP (fast but no built-in authentication) and must respond to unknown clients joining.
Choosing DDoS-Protected Hosting
The most effective protection is choosing a host with built-in DDoS mitigation:
What to look for:
- Network-level DDoS protection included (not an expensive addon)
- Mitigation capacity in the hundreds of Gbps or more
- Low latency during mitigation (filtering should not add significant ping)
- Experience hosting game servers specifically
- Transparent SLA on protection limits
Types of protection:
- Always-on filtering: Traffic passes through scrubbing center constantly. Best protection but can add slight latency.
- On-demand filtering: Only activates when an attack is detected. Brief period of downtime during activation.
- Null-routing: Host disconnects your IP during attack to protect their network. Worst option for you since your server goes offline anyway.
Ask potential hosts what happens during an attack. If they null-route, your server is effectively down. Look for hosts that filter instead.
Self-Hosting Protection
If running on your own hardware or a VPS without built-in protection:
Cloudflare Spectrum: Proxies TCP/UDP traffic through Cloudflare's network. Effective but has a cost for game server traffic.
GRE Tunnels: Route your traffic through a DDoS-protected network via a GRE tunnel. The protection provider absorbs attacks, clean traffic reaches your server.
IP-hiding: Never expose your real server IP publicly. Use a proxy or tunnel so attackers cannot target your actual machine directly.
Practical Steps
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Never share your server's real IP: Use a domain name that resolves through a proxy if possible.
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Firewall aggressively: Only open ports your game actually needs. Block everything else.
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Rate limiting: Limit connections per IP to prevent single sources from overwhelming you.
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Separate game and web traffic: Run your website/panel on a different IP than your game server.
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Have a backup plan: Keep a second IP ready. If your primary gets targeted, switch to the backup while you handle the situation.
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Log attacks: Document attack patterns, times, and sources. This helps your host mitigate and can be useful for legal action.
During an Attack
If you are currently being attacked:
- Contact your hosting provider immediately
- Check if their mitigation is active
- If you have manual controls, enable stricter filtering
- Communicate with players via Discord (they cannot reach your server)
- Do not panic, most attacks stop within hours
- Do not pay extortion demands (they will just ask for more)
After an Attack
- Review logs to understand the attack vector
- Check if your server IP was leaked anywhere
- Consider migrating to a new IP if yours is now a known target
- Upgrade your protection if it was insufficient
- Document the incident for your provider
Cost of Protection
- Budget game hosting with basic protection: 10 to 30 dollars per month
- Professional hosting with strong mitigation: 30 to 100+ dollars per month
- Dedicated DDoS protection services: 50 to 500+ dollars per month depending on capacity
For most community game servers, a host with included DDoS protection at the 20 to 50 dollar range provides sufficient coverage.
FAQ
Can I completely prevent DDoS attacks? You cannot prevent someone from trying. You can mitigate the impact so attacks fail to take your server offline.
Will Cloudflare protect my game server? Cloudflare Spectrum can proxy game traffic, but it costs money and adds some latency. It works but is not the first choice for game servers.
How do I know if I am being DDoSed? Sudden inability to connect, extreme lag for all players simultaneously, and your host reporting abnormal inbound traffic volumes.
Related: DDoS protection basics, VPS security hardening, Best game server hosting