Under Attack Mode

Under Attack Mode provides emergency protection for your site during DDoS attacks or unusual traffic spikes. When enabled, every visitor must pass a challenge before accessing your site.

How It Works

When Under Attack Mode is active, smoxy presents a challenge page to all incoming requests. The visitor's browser automatically solves a proof-of-work challenge. This process typically takes about 3 seconds and requires no interaction from the visitor. Once verified, the visitor proceeds to your site normally.

This mechanism effectively filters out automated attacks and malicious bots, as they cannot solve the challenge. Legitimate visitors with standard browsers pass through automatically after the brief verification.

When to Use

Under Attack Mode is designed as a last resort during active attacks. Enable it when your site experiences a sudden surge of malicious traffic that overwhelms your origin server, you notice unusual patterns indicating a DDoS attack, or your site becomes unresponsive due to high request volumes.

Important Considerations

Before enabling Under Attack Mode, be aware of the following side effects:

Analytics and Tracking: The challenge page may interfere with analytics tools, tracking pixels, and third-party integrations. Some tracking scripts may not fire correctly while the mode is active.

API Communications: External API calls and webhooks to your site could be affected. Automated systems that communicate with your site may fail the challenge.

User Experience: All visitors experience a brief delay (approximately 3 seconds) before reaching your site. While this is acceptable during an attack, it impacts normal user experience.

Best Practices

Enable Under Attack Mode only during active attacks. It is not intended for permanent use.

Disable the mode as soon as the attack subsides to restore normal user experience.

Inform your team when Under Attack Mode is active, especially if you have automated systems or integrations that interact with your site.

For ongoing protection against bots and malicious traffic, use Access Rules instead. Access Rules allow you to create targeted challenges for specific conditions without affecting all visitors.

Enabling and Disabling

Navigate to your site's Dashboard in smoxy. Under Quick Actions, toggle the Under Attack Mode switch. A confirmation dialog will appear reminding you of the important considerations. Click "Enable Under Attack Mode" to activate protection.

To disable, simply toggle the switch off. Protection stops immediately and all visitors can access your site without the challenge page.