DDoS attacks are often big, loud and impossible to ignore. That’s the whole point. Like a magician using sleight of hand, attackers create chaos in one place to divert attention from where the real trick is happening. While you’re focused on the obvious spectacle—the flood of traffic hammering your network—the real attack is slipping by unnoticed.

This isn’t just a theory. It’s happening right now, for a variety of targets. Security researchers, government agencies and network operators are reporting a rise in DDoS attacks being used as smokescreens for real intrusions—ransomware, data theft and espionage.

So, if your security playbook still treats DDoS as “just an availability problem,” it’s time for an update.

DDoS is more than just a nuisance

Consider this scenario: Your network operations team is scrambling. A terabit-scale DDoS attack is hammering your network, traffic graphs are spiking, customer complaints are rolling in and execs are Slacking you for updates every five minutes. Everyone is laser-focused on getting the service back online.

And that’s when attackers make their move.

The 1win breach is a case in point. In late 2024, a hacker infiltrated Russian sports betting giant 1win, exfiltrating 96 million user records. The attack reportedly began with a wave of DDoS attacks that overwhelmed the company’s defenses while the hacker dumped the entire user database. Initially demanding a $1 million (USD) ransom, the attacker later hiked it to $15 million (USD) after failed negotiations. With no payout secured, the stolen data has since surfaced in breach repositories like Have I Been Pwned (HIBP).

Government computer emergency response teams (CERTs) and agencies have been urging defenders to keep an eye out for signs of deeper compromise during a DDoS incident. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) emphasizes the importance of monitoring other network assets during a DDoS event to ensure that the attack isn’t just a distraction from an ongoing breach.

A well-timed DDoS attack isn’t just about disruption. It’s about misdirection.

Firewalls are great until they’re not

Your firewall is supposed to be the gatekeeper, the bouncer at the club, keeping the wrong traffic out. But under extreme conditions, some firewalls can struggle to keep up. And in certain configurations, they may prioritize availability over security.

Here’s why: Most firewalls are stateful, meaning they track every connection passing through them. During a massive DDoS attack, the sheer volume of connections can exhaust firewall resources, leading to degraded performance. Depending on how the device is configured, it may fail open—allowing traffic through rather than blocking it—to avoid completely cutting off service.

This behavior isn’t universal, but it has been observed in certain products and setups. In late 2024, attackers exploited a vulnerability in Fortinet firewalls that led to a fail-open scenario under heavy load. While not all firewalls exhibit this behavior, adversaries are well aware of which configurations and vendors may be more susceptible.

Firewalls play a critical role in network security, but they shouldn’t be your only line of defense—especially against high-volume DDoS attacks. Stateful firewalls are great at tracking and filtering connections, but under extreme load, they can become overwhelmed. That’s why they should be reinforced with stateless DDoS protection solutions that can absorb massive traffic floods without exhausting resources.

By deploying stateless filtering at the network edge, organizations can ensure that volumetric attacks never reach the firewall, keeping it functional and focused on its real job: enforcing security policies, not struggling to stay online.

Automation is the only real answer

Here’s an uncomfortable truth: You can’t manually defend against modern DDoS attacks. They happen too fast, at too large a scale. In 2024, 44% of observed DDoS attacks lasted less than five minutes. By the time your team detects, analyzes and responds to an attack, the damage is already done. Without automation, defense is just reaction, always one step behind.

Attackers increasingly automate everything, constantly evolving their methods to outpace traditional defenses. Security teams must respond with the same agility. And even with mitigation tools in place, they need to be smart enough to separate real threats from normal traffic spikes. If every traffic surge sets off alarms, security teams will start tuning them out until a real attack slips through.

That’s why automation isn’t optional—it’s survival. A modern DDoS defense must detect and mitigate attacks instantly, without waiting for human intervention. It needs to minimize false positives so teams aren’t drowning in alerts. And it has to adapt in real time, because attackers don’t wait for defender teams to catch up.

Deepfield Defender is built for exactly this. It detects the attack, mitigates it in seconds and keeps legitimate traffic flowing—no panic, no rule tweaking, no 3 a.m. emergency calls. An automated DDoS response also frees up your security operations (SecOps) team to focus on addressing other security threats.

DDoS is just the opening move

DDoS attacks used to be about taking services offline. Now, they’re more likely to be the opening move in a much bigger play.

If you’re treating DDoS attacks as a simple availability issue, you’re fighting yesterday’s battle. Today’s attackers are weaponizing DDoS to distract, overwhelm and break through defenses.

Stopping them takes more than just scrubbing traffic. It requires automation, intelligence and a security stack that doesn’t fall apart under pressure.

The real threat isn’t the flood of packets. It’s what happens while you’re too busy dealing with it to notice.