Since Sept 2016, when krebsonsecurity.com was hit w/ something close to a world record DDoS from Mirai, my site has been behind Google Shield, a free program that Google offers to journalists, news outlets and human rights groups that might otherwise be DDoSsed into silence in one form or another. On the one hand, I don't have as much visibility into who's attacking me or when, because I mostly never notice any disruption. But when I do hear from the Shield team about an attack, it's usually something interesting (e.g. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/09/krebsonsecurity-hit-by-huge-new-iot-botnet-meris/)

Anyway, Google said today it is expanding the Shield offering to include "organizations representing marginalized groups and non-profit organizations supporting the arts and sciences."

https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/identity-security/project-shield-expands-free-ddos-protection

I gave Google this feedback long ago, but I'll add it here b/c it should be the default if you're on Shield and also using other Google services (Gmail, etc): If you or your organization is eligible for this free protection, it probably also means you are a giant target. IMHO, turning on Advanced Protection for Google Accounts should be automatic for Shield users.

KrebsOnSecurity Hit By Huge New IoT Botnet “Meris” – Krebs on Security

BTW I have no idea how much Google has spent protecting just my site over the past 8 years, but it has to be a LOT. The economics of defending dinky sites like mine don't scale very well and sometimes require some fairly custom solutions. I just remember after I exited Akamai's protective harbor and started casting about for pricing on DDoS protection, the figures I was quoted were more than I made in a year, and could expand dramatically depending on how evil the adversary wanted to be.

I wrote about this in more detail not long after I put the site behind Shield.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/02/how-google-took-on-mirai-krebsonsecurity/

How Google Took on Mirai, KrebsOnSecurity – Krebs on Security

Dammit, I've gone to archive.org today like I do almost every day, and twice forgot they are still down. Like pouring yourself a bowl of cereal and realizing you have no milk.

Seems like they'd easily qualify for Shield, no?

Jason Parker (he/they) (@north@ꩰ.com)

I just tried to load an archive.org link, which failed because of the DDoS. Then I thought "oh, I bet the Internet Archive has a copy!". Oh...

ꩰ -- IDN testing