Online gaming is a serious business for many. Some players gain an advantage in the game, such as inciting distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the Internet that temporarily cripple rival computers.

The best VPN providers offer solutions that act as barriers to this type of attack. By using a gaming VPN, you can completely avoid the effects of DDoS attacks.

A DDoS attack is a malicious attempt to destroy a network of remote computers. In the context of the game, the opposing team can use DDoS attacks to slow down the connection between the network and the game server.

If you do not have reliable access to the game server, there may be lags, delays, or dropouts. This gives the other team an advantage. In many cases, cooperative DDoS attacks mean that you have no access to your game server at all and are completely eliminated from your competitors.

DDoS attacks work by overloading the network or surrounding infrastructure with Internet traffic. Although a single source denial of service attack exists, traffic from 1 source on the Internet does not have much impact on network performance. DDoS attacks are nasty because they send a flood of traffic from multiple locations at once.

In many cases, DDoS attacks come from compromised computers or devices infected with malware. Here the malicious actor simply sends a single instruction to thousands of "bots" in the "botnet", which targets a large amount of Internet traffic with an IP address, overloads the network and prevents it from functioning properly in the game.

DDoS attacks have many consequences, not just for gamers. Multiple mitigation strategies have emerged as companies, governments, and military operations have all been targeted by DDoS attacks.

Most of these strategies require additional firewalls between your network and the Internet.It tries to intelligently check which traffic is real and which traffic should be sent to the virtual black hole.

Others limit the number of connections each remote computer can make and effectively slow down the service for everyone, but ensure that true visitors still have access to the network when a DDoS attack occurs.

Another strategy is to spread incoming traffic to a network of distributed servers so that the traffic surge does not overwhelm a single server.1 Companies often use cloud-based DDoS protection, such as CloudFlare, which provides a buffer between the network and the Internet.

These strategies may work for large companies and governments, but they are not practical for most gamers. To avoid DDoS attacks in your game, you can consider using a VPN.

To understand how a VPN protects against DDoS attacks, first understand that when you're playing online games, you're connecting to the Internet from a unique IP address. In many games, it's easy for other players to see your IP address. Then they direct a DDoS attack at this address.

When using a VPN, the actual IP address is hidden. The hacker will look at the IP address of the VPN server instead. You can attack the IP address of your VPN server if you want, but secure VPNs have extensive DDoS protection, so attacks don't degrade network performance.

DDoS attacks are malicious attempts to cause network disruption. In the case of games, they'll knock you out of the game server or overload your home network with Internet traffic

Firewalls can help you avoid DDoS attacks. However, if you experience a persistent DDoS attack, consider using a VPN service. When you use a VPN, your real IP address is masked from other IP addresses, and DDoS attacks are sent to your VPN provider instead. Many VPN providers for gamers typically have good DDoS protection, so you should be able to continue your game undisturbed.