Google will offer news sites a free service to safeguard against DDoS attacks, the company has said.
The so-called Project Shield will also defend election monitoring and human rights websites, using a "reverse proxy" to route all a publisher's traffic through Google's cloud platform.
Webmasters can apply for the program here. Once approved, Google will send an email with further instructions.
According to the company, "a webmaster who has administrative privileges for the website and is able to modify DNS records should be able to set the service up in approximately 10 minutes."
Google has assured users that they won't use the information to serve ads, but only for "DDoS mitigation and caching and to improve the Project Shield service".
DDoS attacks can be massively damaging to a business, resulting in lost revenues and productivity as well as causing a massive headache trying to fight them.
High-profile DDoS attacks have been launched against the Xbox Live and PlayStation Network gaming services, along with countless others.
"DDoS attacks are nothing new," said Kaspersky Lab's principal security researcher David Emm. "They've been a threat for many years and are one of the most popular weapons in a cybercriminals' arsenal."
"The problem is that today DDoS attacks can be set up cheaply and easily, from almost anyone."
"In fact," he said, "although the cost to businesses from this kind of attack is on average around 291,000, the simplest DDoS attack can be acquired for only 32.30 and ordered anonymously."
"As a result, the volume of attacks has rapidly increased in recent years, so it's imperative that businesses find an effective way to safeguard themselves from such attacks in 2016."
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