Looking at recent trends in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, it's easy to become complacent about the severity of the threat. For example, a report from Arbor Networks revealed that peak DDoS volume declined from 2016 to 2017, dropping from 800 Gbps (a record high) to "only" 600 Gbps.
However, that decline was accompanied by an overall increase in the number of DDoS attempts: There were 700,000 additional incidents in 2017, for a total of 7.5 million for the year. DDoS attacks are also distributed unevenly across verticals. Enterprises along with organizations in education and government are frequent targets. Sixty percent of them confirmed experiencing between one and ten DDoS attacks in 2017, according to Arbor's report.
A DDoS campaign is difficult to respond to if you haven't prepared for it. Trying to reverse it can feel like attempting to turn around a supertanker that has gone off course: Even if you ultimately right the ship, you have already lost valuable time just getting back to where you started. Accordingly, it's essential to be proactive about DDoS mitigation, especially for performance-sensitive applications such as hosted VoIP.
What does a practical approach to DDoS prevention look like?
Effective DDoS defense must be multi-layered, covering everything from how your website looks to the paths your most important traffic traverses through your wide area network. An anti-DDoS strategy should include:
SECURE NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE
All Telesystem services passing through our core network receive built-in DDoS protection at no extra cost to customers. Our platform leverages interconnected, analytics-based applications to identify and shield traffic from DDoS spam. With such secure infrastructure in place, the rest of the DDoS response is much easier to coordinate.
TRANSPARENT MITIGATION
You might have visited a website that was under attack and been greeted by a splash screen notifying you of the current situation. In reality, customers usually do not need to know that a DDoS campaign in progress. Plus, any recognition only feeds into what DDoS perpetrators want. Many under-attack sites now look the same as they did before the DDoS ramped up, which can help retain customers while everything is being repaired behind the scenes.
ACCURATE DETECTION
Uncovering a DDoS attack is pivotal, since a late discovery often means an uphill struggle to get back online in a timely manner. Efficient DDoS detection will usually thoroughly screen for malicious activity at the start of an attack, but remain idle when the site is functioning normally, so as not to consume excessive network resources.
Together, these mechanisms form a useful shield against modern DDoS attacks. Even if peak attack strength has dropped off from its 2016 peak, organizations everywhere must stay vigilant. The DDoS protections built into Telesystem's solutions offer peace of mind that your critical voice communications are safe from cyberattack. Request a quote today or contact us for more details.
