Learn Hacker Language, Decrease Risk

Amberly Dressler — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:00:00 GMT

In order to fight the battle of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, at-risk businesses need to be armed with the same tools as the bad guys.

Prolexic Technologies, a DDoS mitigation service provider, announced it has added an extensive glossary of DoS and DDoS terms to its online Knowledge Center, which will help Web workers understand the tools and methods hackers use to target organizations.

"When faced with a DDoS attack, confusion can quickly set in, especially when an organization's key IT personnel are unavailable," said Stuart Scholly, Prolexic's president. "Decision makers typically aren't familiar with these terms, but have to act fast. This glossary provides one more tool to help them promptly assess the situation and take appropriate action to mitigate any damage."

More than 60 common acronyms and technical terms used to describe these attacks are defined in the Glossary of Terms. The need for Web workers to familiarize themselves with these terms is growing, as according to the Prolexic Security Engineering & Response Team, such DDoS attacks increased 10 percent in Q2 2012.

"Malicious hackers already know this stuff," said Scholly. "They know the difference between a Layer 4 and a Layer 7 attack. When businesses and media can speak their language, too, it becomes more difficult to catch a potential target off guard."

To view the free glossary, click here.

Don’t Let a DDoS Attack Hijack the Holidays

Linc Wonham — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:30:00 GMT

Even though Halloween has passed, the next eight weeks can be a particularly scary time for all online businesses but especially retailers. E-Commerce companies are particularly susceptible to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks during the fourth-quarter holiday season, as attackers like to cause the most chaos and make the largest possible financial impact.

Because a significant percentage of most retailers' annual revenues are made in the fourth quarter, a serious DDoS attack can be financially devastating.

“Last year we saw attack durations spike in the last three weeks of the year,” says Neal Quinn, vice president of operations at Prolexic Technologies, a leader in DDoS protection services. “Our data shows that the two highest average attack duration figures for the entire year – six days and almost eight days – were recorded during the last two weeks of the year. Typically, we see average attack duration of one to three days, so with longer attacks you can expect more downtime and more financial impact.”

To raise awareness of the increased potential for attack, Prolexic has launched a marketing campaign that suggests retailers put DDoS protection in place or re-evaluate the protection they already have, as it may not be sufficient to stop increasingly large and complex attacks.

“Many e-commerce firms obtain DDoS protection from their ISP, hosting provider or content delivery network,” says Michael E. Donner, chief marketing officer at Prolexic. “What many companies fail to realize is that against the more complex Layer 7 and SSL attacks that target Web applications, these mitigation services consistently fail to work. The campaign raises awareness of this little-known fact.”

The campaign is supported by a number of marketing assets that are available for download. In addition to two new white papers, “’Tis the Season – for DDoS Attacks” and “The Executive’s Guide to DDoS”, a case study on SpaFinder.com, a global online resource for spa and wellness services and products, is also available. Despite having DDoS mitigation services in place from its hosting company, the SpaFinder.com site was taken offline by a Layer 7 DDoS attack over the summer before Prolexic stepped in to mitigate the attack.

'Net Features : prolexic technologies

Learn Hacker Language, Decrease Risk

Don’t Let a DDoS Attack Hijack the Holidays