Question

Difficulty: Very hardEdge and DDoS Protection

A global media streaming platform uses Amazon Route 53 for DNS, Amazon CloudFront for content delivery, and an Application Load Balancer (ALB) backing an Auto Scaling group of Amazon EC2 instances. During peak events, the platform is frequently targeted by HTTP flood attacks (Layer 7) that cause the EC2 Auto Scaling group to scale out unnecessarily, resulting in high costs. Additionally, DNS query floods have recently threatened the availability of their DNS services. The platform requires a solution that automatically mitigates both Layer 7 and DNS-level DDoS attacks, provides real-time visibility into attacks, and offers financial protection against scaling costs incurred due to DDoS-related traffic spikes. Which solution will meet these requirements with the least administrative effort?

  1. Subscribe to AWS Shield Advanced. Associate Shield Advanced with the Route 53 hosted zones, CloudFront distributions, and the ALB. Enable AWS WAF on the CloudFront distributions, configure rate-based rules, and enable Shield Advanced automatic application-layer DDoS mitigation.Answer
  2. B
    Subscribe to AWS Shield Standard. Enable AWS WAF rate-based rules on the Application Load Balancer. Create a custom AWS Lambda function that parses VPC Flow Logs and dynamically updates Network ACLs at the subnet level to block malicious IPs and prevent EC2 scaling costs.
  3. C
    Subscribe to AWS Shield Advanced. Associate Shield Advanced with the VPC subnets containing the Application Load Balancer and EC2 instances. Enable AWS WAF on the ALB to mitigate DNS query floods, and configure Security Group rules to block volumetric Layer 4 attacks at the edge.
  4. D
    Enable AWS WAF on the Application Load Balancer. Implement AWS Shield Standard across the CloudFront distributions and ALB. Use AWS Firewall Manager to automatically create and deploy stateless Network ACL rules to the VPC boundary to filter out Layer 7 HTTP flood attacks.

Answer

Subscribe to AWS Shield Advanced, associate it with the Route 53 hosted zones, CloudFront distributions, and the Application Load Balancer, enable AWS WAF on CloudFront with rate-based rules, and enable automatic application-layer DDoS mitigation.
The correct solution uses AWS Shield Advanced associated with Amazon Route 53, Amazon CloudFront, and the Application Load Balancer. Shield Advanced protects Route 53 against DNS query floods, and when coupled with AWS WAF, it automatically creates rules to mitigate Layer 7 HTTP flood attacks. Additionally, Shield Advanced includes DDoS cost protection, which provides service credits for scaling costs (such as ALB and EC2 Auto Scaling charges) caused by DDoS attacks, meeting all requirements with minimal administrative overhead.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the requirements for Layer 7 HTTP flood protection, DNS query flood protection, and cost protection.
Determine that AWS Shield Advanced is required because AWS Shield Standard does not provide cost protection or DNS/L7 automatic mitigation.
AWS Shield Advanced offers financial protection for scaling costs and native integration with Route 53 and CloudFront/ALB.
2
Select the resources to protect with AWS Shield Advanced.
Associate Shield Advanced with Route 53 hosted zones (for DNS query floods), CloudFront distributions, and the ALB.
This establishes DDoS protection at both the DNS routing layer and the content delivery/load balancing layers.
3
Configure application-layer (Layer 7) defenses using AWS WAF and Shield Advanced features.
Enable AWS WAF on CloudFront and configure rate-based rules, and turn on the automatic application-layer DDoS mitigation feature of Shield Advanced.
This automatically creates and deploys AWS WAF rules when a Layer 7 DDoS attack is detected, preventing origin overload and unnecessary scaling.

Key Concept

AWS Shield Advanced protects Route 53, CloudFront, and ALB against sophisticated Layer 3/4 and Layer 7 DDoS attacks, provides automatic L7 mitigation via AWS WAF, and offers cost protection for scaling resources during an attack.
Estimated Time:3m 0s
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