Absorbing attack traffic.
WHAT AN ATTACK LOOKS LIKE
A sudden very large volume of requests, exhausting resources and making the site unavailable.
For a shared hosting account, this means hitting resource limits and being unable to serve anyone.
WHAT CLOUDFLARE DOES
Absorbs the traffic at its own network before it reaches us.
This is the clearest benefit of the proxy, and it is included on the free plan.
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO DURING AN ATTACK
Enable Under Attack mode Open a ticket so we know Check Cloudflare analytics to understand what is arriving Add firewall rules targeting the pattern, if one is identifiable
WHAT NOT TO DO
Nothing. An attack against a shared hosting account affects other accounts on the server, and we may need to act.
Tell us.
AFTERWARDS
Turn off Under Attack mode. It degrades the experience for ordinary visitors.
Review what the attack targeted and whether a rule would prevent a repeat.
THE IMPORTANT CAVEAT
Protection only works if the attack goes through Cloudflare. If your origin address is known, it can be targeted directly.
That is covered separately.
