The number and duration of DDoS attacks increase every year. Their victims, first of all, are businesses and service providers whose platforms and applications are forced to go offline because of overwhelming traffic and connection requests. For businesses, the effects of DDoS can be devastating and cost millions of dollars. Individuals also suffer from DDoS attacks, for example, online gamers who can’t access game servers or experience significant drops in speed. The good news is that it is quite possible to defend your network against such attacks and the solution is affordable for anyone. You can solve this problem with a VPN. In this article, we review the best DDoS protected VPN and explain how they work.
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Who Needs a DDoS Protection
Most often DDoS affects businesses that operate online but private users face this trouble as well. Malicious attacks are a burning problem in the gaming community. Unscrupulous players may use DDoS to affect your connection. When they send more traffic through your network, connection speed will significantly drop, and in most cases, you will be denied access to game servers whatsoever. This issue is less likely when you use official platforms to play online games since they hide users’ IP addresses. However, if you are playing on unofficial servers that don’t offer such protection, you may become a victim of DDoS.
You may face the same problem when using torrents and sharing websites. Other users can see your real IP address which is vulnerable to malicious actions. The same thing can happen when you use VoIP apps. Besides being a victim of DDoS, your network might unintentionally take part in such attacks if your device is infected with malware.
How can a VPN Protect You Against DDoS?
Every top-notch VPN can be of great help to protect against DDoS. When you connect to a VPN, you route your Internet traffic through one of its servers. If you are under attack, it will only affect a VPN server instead of your network. Many VPNs have high-bandwidth networks capable of transferring huge amounts of data, so they can absorb superfluous traffic. Even if a VPN server is down, you just need to switch to another one and continue the normal work.
Along with this, some VPNs offer dedicated DDoS protection. They have optimized networks with great scalability that are able to handle extra traffic without any additional measures. Also, providers may offer filters to detect and stop harmful traffic as well as automated connections to standby servers while an attack takes place.
The Best DDoS protected VPN for Individual Users
To defend yourself against DDoS, you need to look for a VPN able to support a stable and fast connection while ensuring a sufficient level of security. Online gamers should also pay attention to providers offering low ping times and high download speeds. A large server network is also important since it helps to select among various options without loosing in quality of connection if some of the servers are out of order.
Our team has tested numerous providers to determine what level of security they may offer to their clients in the face of DDoS attacks. Here are top-3 VPN services with the best DDoS protection:
- Provider
- User Rating
- Our Review
- Price
PureVPN- 4807 Votes
- $3.24 / month
ExpressVPN- 3795 Votes
- $6.67 / month
Want to get a little bit more information about the services that we recommend? We’ve made these brief reviews about the best DDoS protected VPNs:
NordVPN
The provider used to offer specialized DDoS servers but it eventually decided to take one step further and include DDoS protection on its whole network. So, no matter what server you choose among 5400+ available options, you can be sure that your connection stays consistent and uninterrupted. The service also supplies a useful CyberSec feature protecting you from viruses and malware. This technology won’t allow your computer to become a part of a botnet network that carries out DDoS attacks. Although sometimes speeds may vary slightly across the network, NordVPN is a quite fast provider suitable for online gaming. You can even opt for your own dedicated IP address if you don’t want other users to compromise your connection (this feature comes at an additional cost). All in all, NordVPN is a super secure VPN service with competitive-priced tariffs. Its subscription options include plans ranging from 1-month to 2 years, and the latter has a massive 72% off. Don’t be afraid to invest in long-duration subscriptions – there is a 30-day refund policy to get your money back if you are not satisfied.
PureVPN
PureVPN was among the first VPNs to offer DDoS prevention tools. They even invited a renowned cybersecurity expert Scott Schober to optimize their network and become the best DDoS protected VPN. Besides special attack-prevention tools, PureVPN’s anti-DDoS packages include dedicated IP addresses (although, they are only available in the USA, Canada, the Netherlands, and France). It is a great option for individual users as well as businesses, especially those operating in the named countries. The provider assures it can repel DDoS attacks that measure up to 480Gb/s. If superfluous traffic is detected, an anti-DDoS mechanism is activated automatically, filtering out suspicious requests. Even without the specialized protection, you can feel safe on PureVPN network thanks to top-notch security features. The service offers more than 6500 services in 78 counties. Some of them are even equipped with Ozone Ready technology that features Intrusion Detection/Prevention System. PureVPN’s subscription doesn’t cost much even with anti-DDoS add-ons, especially affordable is a 2-year plan. If you don’t enjoy something about the service, it will refund you without any questions within 31 days.
ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN’s network is set up to recognize suspicious requests and weed out traffic influx. This advanced infrastructure with a large capacity is optimized to absorb even massive DDoS attacks. ExpressVPN has an extensive server park comprising of more than 3000 servers spread out in 94 countries. No matter what location you connect to, the provider guarantees blazing connection speeds. This makes ExpressVPN an ideal service for gaming, streaming, and other activities that require a fast connection. Thanks to split-tunneling, you can even select which part of your traffic to route through a VPN and which to leave as it is. ExpressVPN is not the cheapest provider in the industry but it is worth every cent you spend. We recommend purchasing a 1-year subscription that comes with a 49% discount. If for any reason the service doesn’t suit your needs, there is a 30-day money back guarantee, so you can test it out risk-free.
Conclusion
DDoS protection is a must for any business as well as people who require an uninterrupted connection. A good VPN provider is able to safeguard you against intruders even without specialized attack-preventing tools if its network features sufficient scalability and consists of numerous servers across the globe. However, with dedicated DDoS protection, your provider is able to reactively respond to attacks and filter out malicious traffic, thus maintaining normal operation of the network. Only world-class services are able to provide such features. This is one of the reasons why free VPNs are not up for the task. Their server networks are modest and not designed for high bandwidth. They are often victims of DDoS attacks themselves, so naturally, they can’t protect their users. Additionally, these services have questionable security policies and some of them have even been caught selling clients’ bandwidth. They may even force users to secretly become a part of a botnet responsible for DDoS attacks. So, if you want to get the best DDoS protected VPN, choose among advanced services such as the ones that we recommend, instead of playing Russian roulette with free VPNs.