DDoS Mitigation Calculator
Add up detection, diversion and ramp time to find your true time to mitigate, and the traffic lost before it engages.
About DDoS Mitigation Calculator
Time to mitigate is the sum of three independent delays, and traffic is unprotected for every second of it. Because most attacks are short, that fixed overhead — not the mitigation quality — usually determines how much damage an event does. A two-minute time to mitigate against a three-minute attack means you were down for two-thirds of it, no matter how good the scrubbing was once it engaged.
Formula
DDoS Mitigation
time to mitigate = detection + diversion + ramp; unprotected seconds = min(attack duration, time to mitigate).
- detection
- Seconds to recognise the attack from telemetry
- diversion
- Seconds for BGP or DNS redirection to take effect
- ramp
- Seconds for countermeasures to reach full effect
Worked example
With the default values below, DDoS Mitigation Calculator returns Total Time to Mitigate of 120. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Detection timeaccepts 0–3,600 seconds
- 30 seconds
- Diversion time (BGP announce + propagation)accepts 0–3,600 seconds
- 60 seconds
- Mitigation ramp / signature build timeaccepts 0–3,600 seconds
- 30 seconds
- Attack durationaccepts 0.1–1,440 minutes
- 20 minutes
- Legitimate requests per secondaccepts 0–10,000,000 req/s
- 12,000 req/s
- Revenue per minute of availabilityaccepts 0–10,000,000
- 4,500
Results
- Total Time to Mitigate
- 120 seconds
- Attack Time Mitigated
- 90.0%
- Unprotected Seconds
- 120 seconds
- Legitimate Requests Lost
- 1,440,000
- Revenue at Risk
- $9,000.00
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2DDoS Mitigation
- 3Total Time to Mitigate= 120 seconds
- 4Attack Time Mitigated= 90.0
- 5Unprotected Seconds= 120 seconds
- 6Legitimate Requests Lost= 1,440,000
- 7Revenue at Risk= 9,000.00
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 6 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is DDoS Mitigation calculated?
time to mitigate = detection + diversion + ramp; unprotected seconds = min(attack duration, time to mitigate). Time to mitigate is the sum of three independent delays, and traffic is unprotected for every second of it. Because most attacks are short, that fixed overhead — not the mitigation quality — usually determines how much damage an event does.
Why does DDoS Mitigation matter?
A two-minute time to mitigate against a three-minute attack means you were down for two-thirds of it, no matter how good the scrubbing was once it engaged.
What values do I need to enter?
This calculator takes 6 inputs: Detection time, Diversion time (BGP announce + propagation), Mitigation ramp / signature build time, Attack duration, Legitimate requests per second, Revenue per minute of availability. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.
How do I cut time to mitigate?
Always-on mitigation removes detection and diversion entirely, at the cost of steady-state latency and inspection expense. If you stay on-demand, pre-agreed BGP communities, pre-built signatures and automated triggering typically take a 5-minute manual process down to under 60 seconds.