Classic DDoS mitigation falls into one of two problems. First: cloud scrubbing services route traffic to another network. This adds latency and opens your data to a third party during attack analysis. Cost calculations often charge for attack traffic too.
Second: dedicated on-prem DDoS appliances need DDoS-expert tuning for the right response. Thresholds are set manually; as topology changes, thresholds get stale; the operations team has to keep updating them.
On the attacker side, vectors constantly shift. SYN flood starts, evolves to UDP flood within minutes, then DNS amplification arrives. Orchestrated campaigns using IoT botnets combine different vectors over hours. Single-vector defenses age with every new campaign.
The TR7 L4 DDoS add-on tackles all three together: kernel-level packet filtering handles all common vectors in one engine, adaptive baseline removes the operator from manual tuning, and mitigation stays on your own hardware.
The L4 DDoS add-on runs on four principles: kernel-level performance, multi-vector coverage, adaptive baseline learning, and route-table granularity.
Detection and filtering apply at the packet layer — before the application layer. High-volume floods are dropped before reaching application threads; resource consumption stays minimal.
SYN/UDP/ICMP/ACK flood, fragment attacks, DNS/NTP/SSDP/Memcached amplification — all recognized in the same filtering engine. Mid-campaign vector shifts don't interrupt mitigation.
The system observes your traffic's normal profile, periodically generates a baseline, and asks the operator 'should I treat above this level as an attack?'. Operator approves; the baseline activates and tunes itself over time.
Mitigation scope scales per route table. The same ADC can host different L4 protection profiles for different segments; small deployments use one route table, multi-customer or multi-segment enterprises use 25+.
The TR7 L4 DDoS add-on handles the most common network-layer vectors of modern attack campaigns in a single engine.
An attacker uses hundreds of thousands of half-open TCP connections to saturate the server's connection pool. Classic systems must reject legitimate requests once the pool fills. TR7 L4 DDoS evaluates SYN packets against the baseline; when anomalous source diversity or SYN/ACK ratio is caught, SYN cookies and aggressive TIME_WAIT handling kick in. Legitimate connections aren't affected.
The connectionless nature of UDP gives the attacker easy flood access. TR7 catches UDP floods via source-address validation, packet-size distribution, and port-based density profiles. Unexpected high-volume traffic from unusual sources is evaluated against the baseline; once the attack is recognized, protocol-specific throttle applies.
Ping floods and ICMP echo amplification are classic volumetric vectors. TR7 compares ICMP traffic to the baseline; protocol-compliant but anomalously voluminous traffic is dropped via per-source rate-limit. Network-engineering test traffic isn't affected.
The attacker sends random ACK packets; the server is forced into state-lookup and CPU is consumed. TR7 catches ACK floods through state-table query-density profiles; attack packets are rejected at kernel level.
Fragmented packets exhaust the reassembly pool on the target server. TR7 inspects fragment traffic before reassembly; missing or overlapping fragment patterns are dropped on detection.
The attacker uses misconfigured DNS resolvers to turn small queries into large responses. TR7 compares DNS response traffic against query history; unmatched query-response pairs are recognized as reflector attacks and dropped.
Beyond DNS, classic amplification vectors: NTP monlist, SSDP discovery, Memcached UDP, SNMP getbulk. Each has a protocol-specific traffic profile; unexpected high-amplification responses are filtered before reaching the source.
Modern attack campaigns shift vectors mid-campaign. TR7 continuously observes the active vector mix; the mitigation policy adapts automatically. No operator intervention required.
Traffic profile is learned across hourly, daily, and weekly cycles. The operator reviews the baseline first, approves; afterwards the baseline tunes itself. As traffic grows, thresholds expand; as it shrinks, they tighten.
Mitigation is defined per route table. The same ADC protects different customer segments, different application groups, or different network topologies with separate L4 protection profiles. Capacity tiers — 1, 2, 5, 10, 25 route tables; enterprise gets Unlimited.
The L4 DDoS add-on is not just a technical filter — baseline learning, operator flow, granular scaling, and audit records together form a full operational model.
Traffic profile is observed across hourly, daily, and weekly scales. The system surfaces 'should I treat above this level as an attack?' to the operator; the operator reviews, approves, or modifies. After activation, if the traffic profile evolves, the system surfaces a new baseline suggestion.
New baselines or policy changes go through operator approval before activation. The approval chain is configurable; high-impact changes can require dual approval.
Mitigation rules are defined at route-table level. If the same ADC serves multiple segments, each gets its own independent baseline and mitigation profile.
By detected attack vector, the action is selected automatically: drop, rate-limit, source-blacklist, protocol-specific throttle. Operators can customize via policy.
Volumetric attack traffic doesn't show up on your bill. Classic vendors count blocked attack traffic against bandwidth; TR7 excludes it from the start.
Each detected attack vector, mitigation action applied, source geography, and duration is written to the audit trail and streamed to SIEM. Full evidence chain for forensic investigation and compliance reporting.
A banking infrastructure's traffic is high during the day, low at night. An attacker launches a SYN flood at night; a static threshold set for daytime is too large for night, and one set for night blocks legitimate traffic. TR7 adaptive baseline knows the night profile; the attack is detected the moment it crosses the normal-night line.
An attacker uses 10,000+ open DNS resolvers worldwide to saturate the organization's WAN link. The traffic looks like 'normal' DNS responses. TR7 reflector detection catches traffic that doesn't match a prior query; the attack is stopped at the organization's network edge, not upstream.
An attacker runs a multi-hour campaign with an IoT botnet: starts with SYN flood, switches to UDP flood, then adds DNS amplification. Classic single-vector defense needs re-tuning at each shift. TR7 observes the vector mix continuously; the mitigation policy adapts automatically.
An MSP wants L4 protection for 25 different customers on the same ADC. Each customer's traffic profile is different; one customer's baseline might look like another customer's attack. TR7 runs independent baseline and mitigation profiles per customer at route-table level.
Let's see baseline learning flow, operator confirmation, and multi-vector mitigation live in your environment — a deployment session on a pilot route table.