Today’s digital world relies on interconnectivity. The instant access to whatever products or information consumers seek is made possible by “The Network Effect,” which describes the intrinsic value of a telecommunications network. The larger the number of network connections, or nodes, the higher the value of the network. This creates a feedback loop; as the network grows, the more value it provides, and the more value it [the network] provides, the bigger it grows. And, the value of a network also depends on the number of people who use it to collaborate; together they provide data that all users can access to conduct personal or professional business. Adding nodes to a network helps all the users perform better; the combined connectivity and wealth of shareable data enables people to accomplish more.
Unfortunately, the value of the connectivity and the data that can be accessed makes juicy targets for cybercriminals. If a target organization has a high profile, or a wealth of personal data, or operates a key piece of commerce (for example, the recent Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack), then cybercriminals have more leverage to create chaos, steal data, and/or extort money. The more important the organization is, the higher the stakes.
The number of nodes in a network increases the gateways for cybercriminals to impact all or part of global operations. Most organizations within a network have complex IT landscapes: distributed workforces, distributed servers, cloud applications and third-party integrations are factors that can make it more challenging to defend against cyber threats. When cybercriminals steal data or disable just one node of a multi-faceted network, the negative impacts can be enormous and far-reaching, beyond making it difficult or impossible for just one organization to communicate internally or with their customers. When one node is impacted, it can impact others. Therefore, it is important for each organization in a network to protect itself.
One of the easiest ways for cybercriminals to cripple a part, or all, of a network, is to launch a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack because they are easy to execute, and very affordable. DDoS-for-hire services make it possible to outsource an attack for just a few tens of dollars. Even large, sophisticated organizations have fallen victim to DDoS attacks. For example, Amazon’s cloud computing division AWS was hit by a DDoS attack in October 2019, that lasted eight hours, and impacted the website of thousands of AWS customers, which in turn impacted the customers and employees of those organizations. If it can happen to AWS, it can happen to any organization.
It is essential for organizations to be able to fend off DDoS attacks, because they are now one of the most common cyber threats, impacting network performance and business continuity. The best way to defend against small and large DDoS attacks is to have a fully automated, real-time DDoS mitigation solution and time-to-mitigation is critical; even seconds of degraded network performance or service downtime can impact an organization and the Network it is part of. Out-of-band scrubbing centers are no longer effective enough when it comes to protecting from the impact of DDoS attacks, as they can take minutes, to tens-of-minutes, to redirect the affected traffic and begin mitigating. That’s simply not acceptable for today’s Internet-enabled society, where an interruption that lasts a matter of seconds can impact online business. E-commerce customers will abandon their shopping carts if they can’t connect. Partners will complain of sluggish interactions or downtime. Financial services could lose large sums of money if stock trading goes offline. And, gamers commonly jump to a competitor’s site so their activities won’t be interrupted.
For optimal effectiveness, a Network must be available in real-time, 24/7. That’s one reason why in today’s “Internet first” world, any network downtime or service interruption is not tolerated. It has become imperative for organizations across all industries and sectors to make sure that their networks, websites, and online business applications are up and running, at all times.
For over a decade, Corero has been providing state-of-the-art, highly-effective, real-time automatic DDoS protection solutions for enterprise, hosting and service provider customers around the world. Our SmartWall® DDoS mitigation solutions protect on-premise, cloud, virtual and hybrid environments. If you’d like to learn more, please contact us.
