As DDoS attacks continue to increase in size, sophistication, and frequency, Hosting Providers face increasing pressure to prevent these attacks from impacting their customers.
Hosting Providers are an Unwilling Accomplice to DDoS Attacks
Users of hosting services are often the target for damaging DDoS attacks, making their providers an unwilling accomplice. Hosting Providers service many customers which greatly increases their chances of experiencing a DDoS attack. Without proper protection, an attack on a single client of the provider—such as a high-traffic gaming service—can create major collateral damage to other hosted customers. These innocent bystanders are placed in the unfortunate situation of suffering from second-hand damage purely because they happen to be hosted on the same shared facilities as the intended victim – the results can be devastating for the provider, as well as their customers.
Hosting Providers Must Protect Their Customers
Because a Hosting Provider’s Internet connectivity and infrastructure is shared by so many businesses, they have an obligation to their customers, to adequately protect it from DDoS attacks. Hosting Providers must have the proper protection in place to defend their own critical infrastructure as well as their customers from potential DDoS attacks that can cause severe collateral damage. Providers are bound to various SLAs and uptime requirements, which are significantly impacted by DDoS attacks, so keeping customers protected should be a high priority.
Acquire New Customers by Differentiating from the Competition
Hosting Providers face keen competition for new customers. Everyone is measured on its ability to meet SLAs, as uptime is a key consideration for maintaining business continuity. Enterprises don’t want to move their high-value services to an unprotected cloud; before they consider migrating to hosted services, they need to be sure that their provider has adequate protection measures in place. By differentiating their services with always-on DDoS protection, Hosting Providers can win new customers. When websites, or services, go offline because of a DDoS attack on the hosted servers, customers aren’t very sympathetic; they’re likely to switch providers, as fast as they can. Hosters can stay ahead of the competition and keep their customers happy by defending their servers against these damaging DDoS attacks. A happy customer is a loyal customer, which equals revenue.
How Corero’s SmartWall DDoS Solution Can Help
As more organizations migrate critical applications and services to hosted environments, the premium placed on security is becoming increasingly important. Hosting Providers that can document and demonstrate the value of their DDoS protection capabilities can position themselves to offer tiered services with premium pricing based on the level of advanced DDoS mitigation capabilities a customer requires. With Corero’s SmartWall® Threat Defense System for DDoS protection, providers can offer cleaner transport, enhanced security SLAs, and benefit from greater visibility and reporting with SecureWatch® Analytics. This analytics portal can be leveraged as a comprehensive virtual Security Operations Center (SOC) for executive reporting and forensic-level analysis.