DigitalOcean Cloud Firewall blocks ports. But it cannot detect SSH brute force patterns, SQL injection in your web logs, or malware on disk. Defensia fills every gap Cloud Firewall leaves open.
Secure your Droplet in 30 seconds →Every public-facing Droplet on DigitalOcean is discovered by automated botnets within minutes. Based on Defensia telemetry across production servers, a new Droplet receives its first SSH brute force attempt within 22 minutes of deployment. The average server sees 4,200+ attacks per day — failed password attempts, web vulnerability scans, credential stuffing bots, and port probes.
sshd[4821]: Failed password for root from 185.220.101.7 port 43992 ssh2
sshd[4823]: Invalid user admin from 45.83.64.11 port 55120 ssh2
sshd[4825]: pam_unix(sshd:auth): authentication failure; rhost=103.145.13.90
sshd[4827]: Failed password for invalid user ubuntu from 92.118.39.18 port 22180
sshd[4830]: Disconnected from authenticating user root 45.83.64.11 port 38204 [preauth]
... thousands more today. Every Droplet gets this.
DigitalOcean Cloud Firewall is a solid network-level filter — it blocks ports you do not need open. But it has a hard limit of 50 rules, provides no traffic logs whatsoever, and performs zero application-layer inspection. It cannot tell you that someone is brute-forcing root on port 22, injecting SQL through your web app, or uploading a PHP shell to your WordPress site. You need an active security layer that watches, detects, and responds — and that is exactly what Defensia provides.
DigitalOcean is an excellent cloud provider for developers. It offers reliable infrastructure, great documentation, and a clean UI. But infrastructure security and host-level security are two different things. Here is what DigitalOcean provides natively — and what it does not.
| Security layer | DigitalOcean | Defensia |
|---|---|---|
| Network firewall | Cloud Firewall (free, 50 rules) | iptables/ipset (automatic, unlimited) |
| Firewall logs / traffic visibility | ✗ | Full event log + dashboard |
| SSH brute force detection | ✗ | 15 patterns, auto-ban |
| Web Application Firewall (WAF) | ✗ | 15+ OWASP types from nginx/Apache logs |
| Malware scanning | ✗ | 64K+ hash signatures + 684 patterns |
| CVE / vulnerability scanning | ✗ | NVD + EPSS + CISA KEV |
| DDoS protection | L3/L4 only (free) | L7 via WAF log analysis |
| Server monitoring | CPU, RAM, disk, bandwidth | Security events + attacks + posture score |
| Geoblocking | ✗ | 200+ countries at firewall level |
| Bot management | ✗ | 70+ fingerprints, per-policy |
| Real-time attack dashboard | ✗ | ✓ |
| VPC (private networking) | ✓ | ✗ |
| Managed databases | ✓ | ✗ |
| Automatic backups | ✓ | ✗ |
Credit where it is due: DigitalOcean provides free VPC networking, managed databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Kafka, Valkey), automatic backups, free L3/L4 DDoS protection, SSH key authentication, and 2FA for account access. Their infrastructure is SOC 2 Type II certified. These are strong foundations. Defensia builds the security monitoring layer on top — the part DigitalOcean intentionally does not provide.
One command. Works on every DigitalOcean Droplet — Ubuntu (the default), Debian, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, CentOS, and Fedora. No packages to install, no dependencies, no configuration files. The agent auto-detects your operating system, log paths, and running services.
# What happens on your Droplet:
1. Downloads the Go binary (~15MB) for your architecture (amd64 or arm64)
2. Installs to /usr/local/bin/defensia-agent
3. Creates a systemd service unit
4. Auto-detects SSH log path (/var/log/auth.log on Ubuntu, journald on Rocky/Alma)
5. Auto-detects nginx/Apache access logs if present
6. Starts protecting immediately — no config files to edit
Defensia works alongside DigitalOcean Cloud Firewall — they complement each other. Cloud Firewall filters traffic at the network level before it reaches your Droplet. Defensia detects attacks within the traffic that Cloud Firewall allows through. Keep Cloud Firewall enabled to block unused ports, and let Defensia handle application-layer threats. The agent is a single Go binary with zero dependencies, uses under 30MB of RAM, and works on Droplets starting from $4/month (512MB).
Six detection engines cover every attack surface on your Droplet — from SSH to web applications to the filesystem.
DigitalOcean Monitoring shows CPU spikes when bots hammer your SSH port, but it cannot identify the cause. Defensia reads /var/log/auth.log (Ubuntu, the DO default) or journald (Rocky/Alma) and detects 15 SSH attack patterns: failed passwords, invalid users, pre-auth disconnects, PAM failures, and key exchange drops. Attackers are blocked within seconds via ipset.
Deep dive into SSH protection →Cloud Firewall allows traffic on ports 80 and 443 — it has to. Defensia reads nginx and Apache access logs and detects SQL injection, XSS, path traversal, RCE, SSRF, shellshock, and 10+ more OWASP attack types within that allowed traffic. Zero configuration required — log paths are auto-detected.
See WAF detection details →DigitalOcean has no file-level scanning. Defensia scans the filesystem with 64,000+ hash signatures and 684 dynamic patterns. Detects PHP backdoors in WordPress upload directories, obfuscated shells, cryptominers in /tmp and /dev/shm, and modified system binaries.
Matches installed packages (apt on Ubuntu, rpm on Rocky/Alma) against the National Vulnerability Database. Each CVE is scored with EPSS exploit probability and flagged if it appears in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. DO Monitoring tracks resource usage — Defensia tracks what is exploitable.
70+ bot fingerprints identified from User-Agent strings and request patterns. Legitimate bots (Googlebot, Bingbot) are allowed. Vulnerability scanners, credential stuffing bots, and scrapers are blocked or logged per your policy.
Continuous assessment of your Droplet security: SSH configuration, firewall rules, file permissions, world-readable credentials, exposed .git directories, and weak key permissions. Scored 0-100 with A-F grade. DO Monitoring tells you disk is full — Defensia tells you /tmp has suspicious executables.
Running DigitalOcean Kubernetes? Defensia deploys as a DaemonSet via Helm chart — one agent per worker node. The agent monitors ingress controller logs for web attacks, detects SSH brute force on nodes, and scans for malware across the cluster. DOKS provides a free control plane; you pay only for worker nodes. Defensia adds the security layer that DOKS does not include.
# Deploy on DOKS:
$ helm repo add defensia https://defensia.cloud/charts
$ helm install defensia-agent defensia/defensia-agent \
--set apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY
Killer feature: Defensia reads ingress controller logs (nginx-ingress, Traefik) and detects web attacks across all services behind the ingress — one agent protects your entire cluster. Read the full Kubernetes security guide.
DigitalOcean handles infrastructure — compute, networking, storage, managed databases, load balancers, and DNS. Defensia handles host-level security — attack detection, automated blocking, malware scanning, vulnerability management, and real-time monitoring. Together, they form a complete stack.
Defensia is not a replacement for Cloud Firewall — it is the security layer that sits on top. Cloud Firewall decides which ports are open. Defensia monitors what happens on those open ports and blocks malicious actors automatically. DigitalOcean Monitoring shows you CPU spikes from a cryptominer — Defensia identifies the cryptominer process and alerts you.
Three steps: (1) Enable DigitalOcean Cloud Firewall to block unused ports. (2) Use SSH keys instead of password authentication. (3) Install Defensia with one command — curl -fsSL https://defensia.cloud/install.sh | sudo bash — to get SSH brute force protection, WAF, malware scanning, CVE detection, and a real-time dashboard. Defensia handles everything that Cloud Firewall and SSH keys cannot.
Yes, they complement each other perfectly. Cloud Firewall filters traffic at the network level before it reaches your Droplet — blocking ports you do not need open. Defensia detects application-level attacks within the traffic that Cloud Firewall allows through: SSH brute force on port 22, SQL injection on port 443, malware on disk. There is no conflict between them. Keep both enabled.
Defensia has been submitted to the DigitalOcean Marketplace (both Droplet 1-Click and Kubernetes listings) and is pending approval. In the meantime, you can install Defensia on any existing Droplet with a single curl command. No Marketplace listing required — the install works on any DigitalOcean Droplet running a supported Linux distribution.
Yes. Deploy Defensia via Helm chart as a DaemonSet — one agent per worker node. The agent monitors ingress controller logs for web attacks, detects SSH brute force, scans for malware, and checks for CVEs across all nodes. DOKS provides a free control plane; Defensia adds the security monitoring that DOKS does not include.
Defensia is free for 1 Droplet — includes SSH protection, the full real-time dashboard, and bot detection. Pro costs EUR 9/Droplet/month (EUR 7 billed annually) and adds WAF, malware scanning, CVE intelligence, geoblocking, and alerts. A $6/month Droplet plus EUR 9 Defensia Pro comes to roughly $15/month for a fully secured server. The agent uses under 30MB RAM and works on Droplets as small as $4/month (512MB).
Yes. From the $4/month Basic Droplet (512MB RAM) to Premium and Dedicated CPU Droplets. The agent is a single Go binary that uses under 30MB of memory and negligible CPU. It works on both regular Droplets (shared CPU) and Dedicated CPU Droplets. Supports amd64 and ARM64 architectures.
DigitalOcean Cloud Firewall limits (50 rules, no logs, no application-layer inspection) based on official documentation: docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/firewalls.
DigitalOcean Droplet Monitoring features (CPU, RAM, disk, bandwidth only) based on: docs.digitalocean.com/products/monitoring.
DigitalOcean DDoS protection (L3/L4 only, no L7) based on: docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/ddos-protection.
Attack frequency and time-to-first-attack metrics based on Defensia telemetry data across production servers monitored from January to April 2026.
DigitalOcean revenue ($901M FY2025) and customer count (600K+) based on public financial disclosures and company reports.
Complete guide for all Linux distributions.
Ubuntu is the default Droplet OS.
DOKS, EKS, GKE — Helm chart DaemonSet.
Docker, Swarm, and Kubernetes native.
15 detection patterns, ipset blocking.
OWASP attack detection from server logs.
One command. Under 30 seconds. Works on every DigitalOcean Droplet from $4/month to dedicated CPUs.
No credit card required. Free for 1 server.