How to Secure a Stream from DDoSers?

Question

I conduct a weekly live-stream using Google Hangouts that streams over YouTube. Recently, the stream has been attacked by DDoSers. In an attempt to thwart such attacks, I have tried to keep my IP address secret [by not running Skype] and have even tried entry-level firewalls.

Are there any firewalls that would work well to protect a livestream? Are there any other security measures I could take? Ideally, the total solution would cost no more than $2500.

How effective do you think these countermeasures would be against determined DDoSers?

Answer 1

There are a couple of possibilities, the more effective ones being more expensive. I'll rate them from best to worst.

1) Get a DDoS mitigation service such as akami. They will provide you will a lot of bandwidth and will block any DDoS attacks from getting to the lesser bandwidth of your own connection to your ISP.

2) Get a server hosted at a nearby datacenter to use as a VPN/Proxy. They may be able to provide you with some help against the DDoS or may simply have good enough bandwidth to mitigate the DDoS

3) Get a VPN/Proxy from an existing company. This will give you bad latency and bandwidth without even getting DDoS'd and may not hold against the DDoS.

*) Get two VPNs, one for your public address (skype or whatever) and one as your hangouts proxy. Then if the skype vpn goes down your hangout one will still be up. This is assuming they can't get your IP directly from the hangout.

akami ddos defender

Answer 2

Try some thing like rate limiting if you have something as layer 3 multilayer switch or a firewall that can do this. This for me is the safest , scalable solution considering your setup already employ such filtering / routing devices.

http://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=345618&seqNum=5