Arbor Wins 2012 Global Excellence Award, Extends DDoS Protection via Cloud Signaling

Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS) are definitely harder to defend against than unwanted spam. Today, nearly anyone with an axe to grind against a company can take matters into their own hands. Literally. The option is there to co-opt tens of thousands of PCs to launch DDos assaults on websites. These PCs ask for web pages which may or may not exist. When they do this as many times in a second as possible, it succeeds in disabling company websites, no matter the size.

Now Arbor Networks, Inc., a leading provider of network security and management solutions for next-generation data centers and carrier networks, has announced itself as the winner of the 2012 Global Excellence Awards in the Tomorrow’s Technology Today category. The award is bestowed by the Info Security Products Guide, the industry's leading information security research and advisory guide. One of the ways that Arbor provides unequalled insight into and perspective on Internet security and traffic trends is through its Active Threat Level Analysis System (ATLAS®).

Many companies assume they won’t be directly targeted by a DDoS attack. However, this overlooks the multi-tenant nature of both cloud and Internet infrastructures. That means there are very real effects of collateral damage. Although many CIOs think that you only need to throw enough extra bandwidth at the attack to survive, it’s not bandwidth-related. It’s about backend servicing capacity and adequately handling those transactions once an attack is underway. That’s where Arbor Networks comes in with its Cloud Signaling capability.

The Cloud Signaling Coalition allows the service provider to provide differentiated managed security services, reduce the time to mitigation and increase the effectiveness of the response against DDoS threats, thus saving the customer from major operational expenses and preserving their reputation. Colin Doherty, Arbor Networks president recognized both achievements with its success using Cloud Signaling and the Global Excellence Award by stating, “We are grateful that Info Security Products Guide recognized the truly innovative, one of a kind solution Arbor Networks has with our Cloud Signaling capability. As distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks escalate in size and complexity, DDoS protection requires the collaboration of all stakeholders—from enterprises and data center operators to managed security providers. Cloud Signaling facilitates local and upstream mitigation of edge-based, application-layer DDoS attacks as well as cloud-based, high-bandwidth DDoS attacks in an automated and real-time manner.”

Information security involves three primary components: ensuring confidentiality through compliance, data integrity, and maintaining availability. In the end, a defense model that engages upstream ISPs and systems close to an attack source is the most efficient means for identifying hackers and stopping attacks. In the case of large-scale attacks, you have to work with experts in a cloud environment. Arbor Networks’ Peakflow® SP and Pravail™ Availability Protection System (Pravail APS) solutions are at the hub of Cloud Signaling as well as the ATLAS® Active Threat Level Analysis System ATLAS enables the sharing of real-time security, traffic and routing information that informs numerous business decisions..

Information security is made up of three primary concerns: confidentiality through compliance, data integrity, and maintaining availability. While compliance is critical, it omits the importance of availability and acceptable performance. In today’s network environment, you have to know what your assets are and what controls can be put in place to best protect them and ensure availability. Arbor’s proven network security and management solutions help protect critical customer networks, businesses and brands.