As cybercrime continues to skyrocket, DDoS for hire has become a preferred method of attack. DDoS for hire prices on the Dark Web start from as low as just a few dollars, depending on the scale of the attack. Any organization can be the target of DDoS these days because it is so easy and inexpensive for a competitor, disgruntled customer, employee, campaigner, or other adversary to use a DDoS-for-hire service.
These attacks can be extremely damaging, especially for Internet Service or Hosting Providers, because they have so many downstream customers which could be impacted. It is imperative to have protection in place, but if your current protection relies on an on-demand scrubbing center approach, your organization can be at a significant disadvantage.
Legacy DDoS Defense Systems
Out-of-band, on-demand, scrubbing centers are a legacy approach DDoS protection in which suspicious/attack traffic is remotely monitored and then re-routed to a scrubbing center, which then attempts to remove the bad packets and return the good/legitimate traffic to its intended destination. A significant limitation to this approach is the often-lengthy delay between detection of the attack and when the actual remediation efforts begin. This legacy approach is also typically resource-intensive and expensive because it requires highly trained personnel to monitor traffic 24/7. It is also prone to error, since human security analysts cannot react fast enough to modern multi-vector DDoS attacks and because these attacks are often short in duration and small in volume. Even these short, sub-saturating, attacks are cause for concern, because they still result in poor network performance and inability to access applications and services, which can lead to lost revenue, and reputation damage to organizations that rely on the Internet to do business.
Modern DDoS Defense
To avoid any impact from modern often-indiscriminate DDoS attacks, organizations can deploy automated DDoS defense in a variety of ways: as an on-premises solution, or a hybrid combination of on-premises appliances and a cloud scrubbing service, or as a subscription service from their Hosting or Internet Service Provider.
The Unrelenting Threat
Law enforcement agencies have cracked down on some of the high-profile booter-stresser services that are enabling these low-cost DDoS-for-hire attacks, but there are far too many of them to make a substantial impact. The future of DDoS is, unfortunately, set to include DDoS-for-hire sites, which make it all too easy and inexpensive to launch attacks. Any organization that depends on the Internet to provide its services, should take the DDoS threat seriously, and enable an always-on, real-time, automated DDoS defense solution.
Corero Network Security is a global leader in real-time, high-performance, automatic DDoS defense solutions. Corero’s industry leading SmartWall and SecureWatch technology protects on-premise, cloud, virtual and hybrid environments with a scalable solution that delivers a more cost-effective economic model than ever before.For more on Corero’s flexible deployment models, click here. If you’d like to learn more, please contact us.