Which method does Palo Alto Networks use to mitigate DDoS attacks?

Palo Alto Networks employs traffic shaping and rate limiting as a primary method to mitigate Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Traffic shaping helps manage the flow of data packets by adjusting the speed of traffic to ensure that no single source can overwhelm the bandwidth. It essentially prioritizes legitimate traffic while controlling and modulating the volume of data that can be transmitted. This is crucial during a DDoS attack, where the aim is to flood the network with excessive requests.

Rate limiting complements this by setting thresholds on the number of requests that can be handled in a specific time frame. By enforcing these limits, Palo Alto Networks products can drop excessive packets from malicious sources, ensuring that legitimate users can still access services without interruption.

Increasing bandwidth capacity alone does not effectively prevent DDoS attacks, as attackers can often adapt by simply amplifying their attack strategies. Randomized packet routing could potentially add complexity for traffic analysis but does not directly mitigate the volume of malicious traffic. Disabling incoming traffic temporarily would disrupt legitimate users and is not a sustainable solution for maintaining service availability. Thus, the approach of traffic shaping and rate limiting is comprehensive and aligns with best practices for ensuring network integrity and availability during DDoS attacks.