AWS Shield DDoS Protection
Protects networks and applications by analyzing network security configurations and providing managed DDoS protection. Deploy a scalable, managed DDoS protection solution with AWS Shield to defend your enterprise applications, APIs, and workloads from network and application layer DDoS threats.
Why AWS Shield?
Protects networks and applications by analyzing network security configurations and providing managed DDoS protection. Deploy a scalable, managed DDoS protection solution with AWS Shield to defend your enterprise applications, APIs, and workloads from network and application layer DDoS threats.
AWS Shield Advanced is a cloud-based DDoS protection service that defends networks and applications by providing managed DDoS mitigation against active distributed denial of service (DDoS) events with enterprise-grade scale.
AWS Shield Advanced provides continuous automatic mitigation of sophisticated DDoS events to minimize application downtime and latency. You can customize your DDoS protection strategy using application-specific security controls and expert guidance from the Shield Response Team during active DDoS incidents.
Why choose AWS Shield for DDoS protection:
- Scalable cloud DDoS protection — Built on the AWS global infrastructure, AWS Shield Advanced absorbs DDoS attacks of any size without requiring traffic diversion to external scrubbing centers, delivering a DDoS defense solution with minimal latency impact.
- Managed DDoS response team — AWS Shield Advanced provides 24/7 access to the AWS Shield Response Team (SRT), giving you dedicated DDoS mitigation experts who proactively engage during attacks and help fine-tune your DDoS prevention strategy.
- Cloud-native DDoS mitigation — AWS Shield Advanced integrates natively with Amazon CloudFront, Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon Route 53, and AWS Global Accelerator, providing inline DDoS protection as part of your existing AWS architecture.
- Financial protection against DDoS attacks — AWS Shield Advanced includes DDoS cost protection, providing credits for scaling charges caused by DDoS events so you don't pay for attack-driven traffic spikes.
Benefits of AWS Shield
Discover network security issues through an assessment of your AWS resources and configurations. Get a clear visualization of your network topology that prioritizes misconfigured or overlooked resources. This helps you to spot where additional protection is needed across your AWS accounts. Available with AWS Shield network security director (preview).
Accelerate response using recommended services and rule sets to mitigate each configuration issue. Together with Amazon Q Developer, you can use natural language to easily get answers and recommendations about your network security posture. Available with AWS Shield network security director (preview).
With AWS Shield Advanced, get automatic inline mitigation that detects and blocks sophisticated DDoS events across layers 3, 4, and 7 — providing always-on visibility into attack patterns, traffic anomalies, and mitigation activity in real time. This cloud-based DDoS mitigation service leverages AWS global threat intelligence to protect against evolving threats and safeguard applications without manual intervention, while delivering detailed attack diagnostics, near real-time notifications, and full visibility into both ongoing and historical DDoS events through native integration with AWS CloudWatch, AWS WAF logs, and the Shield Advanced console. Combined with 24/7 expert support from the Shield Response Team (SRT) — who provide proactive engagement, custom mitigation tuning, and post-attack analysis — this DDoS protection solution reduces operational overhead while delivering enterprise-grade DDoS defense at scale.
Secure your applications with DDoS protection tailored specifically to your traffic patterns. As your applications face evolving threats like HTTP floods or DNS query floods, the system automatically baselines your normal traffic. This adaptive DDoS prevention service detects anomalies instantly, providing a dynamic cloud DDoS protection solution that evolves with your application behavior and traffic patterns.
AWS Shield Advanced Use Cases
Protect applications against internet-borne threats and overly permissive access by implementing a network security strategy that follows AWS best practices.
View your network topology and configured services through an interactive visualization to quickly identify security issues and understand resource relationships across your environment and AWS accounts.
Protect web applications and APIs from SYN floods, UDP floods, or other reflection attacks with AWS Shield's cloud-based DDoS protection service. Shield automatically detects and mitigates volumetric DDoS attacks at the network edge, ensuring your applications and APIs remain responsive during attack events. Deploy this DDoS mitigation service across Amazon CloudFront, Application Load Balancer, and Amazon API Gateway for comprehensive API and application protection.
Deploy inline mitigations such as deterministic packet filtering and priority-based traffic shaping to stop basic network-layer attacks. As a cloud-native DDoS mitigation service, AWS Shield processes and filters attack traffic at the AWS network edge, ensuring minimal latency impact on your applications. This DDoS prevention service is designed for workloads where even milliseconds of added latency are unacceptable.
Safeguard your most critical workloads with AWS Shield Advanced, a managed DDoS protection service designed for enterprise-scale defense. Shield Advanced provides dedicated support from the Shield Response Team (SRT), automatic Layer 3/4/7 DDoS mitigation, and real-time attack dashboards. With DDoS cost protection included, this cloud DDoS protection solution ensures that DDoS attacks don't result in unexpected infrastructure costs.
Frequently asked questions
AWS Shield DDoS protection
What does a DDoS mitigation service do?
A DDoS mitigation service detects and neutralizes distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that attempt to overwhelm your applications and infrastructure with malicious traffic. It works by analyzing incoming traffic patterns, identifying anomalies, and filtering out attack traffic before it reaches your resources. A managed DDoS mitigation service like AWS Shield provides automated detection and response, reducing the operational burden on your security team.
What is the difference between AWS Shield Standard and AWS Shield Advanced?
AWS Shield provides always-on DDoS protection for your AWS resources. Shield Standard automatically protects all AWS customers against common network and transport layer (Layer 3/4) DDoS attacks at no additional cost. Shield Advanced provides enhanced detection, 24/7 access to the AWS Shield Response Team (SRT), and cost protection against DDoS-related scaling charges for resources such as Amazon CloudFront, Elastic Load Balancing, and Amazon Route 53.
What is the difference between AWS Shield and a traditional DDoS mitigation service provider?
Traditional DDoS mitigation providers typically route traffic through external scrubbing centers, which can introduce latency and require DNS changes. AWS Shield is a cloud-native DDoS protection service integrated directly into the AWS infrastructure, providing inline mitigation without traffic rerouting. Shield Advanced also includes 24/7 access to the Shield Response Team (SRT) and DDoS cost protection, which are not commonly offered by traditional providers.
Is AWS Shield a cloud-based service?
Yes, AWS Shield is a fully managed, cloud-based DDoS protection service built into the AWS global infrastructure. Shield Standard is automatically enabled for all AWS customers at no extra cost. Shield Advanced provides enterprise-grade cloud DDoS protection with enhanced detection, real-time visibility, and dedicated expert support.
What types of attacks does AWS Shield protect against?
AWS Shield protects against a wide range of DDoS attack vectors. Shield Standard mitigates common network and transport layer attacks such as SYN floods, UDP reflection attacks, and DNS query floods. Shield Advanced provides enhanced protection to L3/L4 while adding WAF capabilities for application layer (Layer 7) attacks and provides advanced threat detection, automatic mitigation, and real-time attack visibility for your most critical resources.
Can AWS Shield Advanced protect APIs and microservices?
Yes, AWS Shield Advanced can protect APIs and microservices when they are fronted by Amazon CloudFront, Elastic Load Balancer, AWS Global Accelerator, or Amazon EC2 (Elastic IP). Shield Advanced provides enhanced DDoS protection and real-time metrics for these resources. Combined with AWS WAF, you can create a comprehensive defense-in-depth strategy for your API-driven architectures.
What AWS services does AWS Shield integrate with?
AWS Shield integrates with Amazon CloudFront, Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon Route 53, AWS Global Accelerator, and Amazon EC2. Shield Advanced provides enhanced protection and real-time visibility for these services. You can use AWS Firewall Manager to centrally manage Shield Advanced protections across multiple AWS accounts and resources.
What is the difference between AWS WAF and AWS Shield?
AWS WAF is a web application firewall that protects against application layer (Layer 7) attacks such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting. AWS Shield is a DDoS protection service that defends against volumetric network and transport layer attacks. For comprehensive protection, AWS recommends using both services together—AWS Shield for DDoS mitigation and AWS WAF for application-level threat filtering.
What is the difference between AWS GuardDuty and Shield?
Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that continuously monitors your AWS accounts and workloads for malicious activity and unauthorized behavior. AWS Shield Advanced is specifically focused on DDoS protection. While GuardDuty identifies threats like compromised instances and unusual API calls, AWS Shield Advanced detects and mitigates DDoS attacks targeting your applications and infrastructure. Both services complement each other as part of a layered security strategy.
Does Shield Advanced cover all resources automatically, or do I have to configure coverage?
AWS Shield Advanced must be activated on the workloads requiring enhanced DDoS protection as outlined in the AWS Shield Advanced deployment documentation.