Partnership Creates Largest DDoS Mitigation Network To Help Combat Attacks

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Organizations can leverage the network to protect against attacks.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are becoming an increasingly serious threat for organizations, evolving from a novelty that created a minor nuisance to a new stealth weapon capable of crippling the mission-critical digital infrastructures of their victims. DDoS attacks generate massive amounts of malicious network traffic, often via networks of infected devices controlled by a single user, as Rene Paap, Product Marketing Manager of A10 Networks explained.

A Neustar report found 82 percent of organizations polled had suffered more than one DDoS attack and, of those companies that had adopted Internet of Things (IoT) technology, 80 percent were attacked, as Business Solutions Magazine reported. Further, 57 percent of all affected organizations experienced a loss of customer data, finances, or intellectual property as a result of the attack, proving that DDoS incidents are a costly affair.

DDoS also act as a smokescreen, diverting IT assets and attention away from typical security processes, leaving the network vulnerable and allowing hackers to take advantage of the distraction to carry out quick, subsequent attacks, often planting advance persistence threats (APTs) on the network or stealing valuable data.

Now, Neustar and Limelight Networks have partnered to create the world’s largest and most distributed DDoS mitigation network to help organizations combat these attacks. The new network has a capacity of 10 terabits per second and 27 points of presence. This collaboration will enable effective mitigation of DDoS threats while dissuading attackers from using this tactic.

“We understand how important it is for our customers to protect critical infrastructure and ensure systems and websites are up and running 24x7,” said Rodney Joffe, Neustar’s Senior Vice President, Distinguished Engineering Fellow, and Head of National Security. “The global scale and stability of the Limelight platform will enable Neustar to outpace attackers and mitigate the world’s largest DDoS attacks with unrivaled performance and minimal disruption.”

The Neustar-Limelight relationship enables Neustar’s SiteProtect to operate as an entirely unique, integrated and distributed DDoS mitigation network with 27 in-region DDoS mitigation centers that allows Neustar to absorb attacks as close as possible to the attack source. It also means Neustar UltraDNS customers now have the increased presence of in-region mitigation centers that will allow Neustar to redirect traffic to local scrubbing centers at the edge of the network, to scrub and deliver Customers’ web locally rather than having to be backhauled to a regional scrubbing center that may be partway around the world, which reduces network latency and restores network performance more quickly and effectively.

As countermeasures improve, so do the methods of the hackers, who are increasingly using multi-vector attacks that play out as a form of real-time interactive combat. Ultimately, DDoS attacks impact the entire organization, from security to marketing, and that means that preventive strategies must be comprehensive as well.