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Microsoft Azure Releases DDoS IP protection for SMBs

Microsoft is adding a new product targeted at small and medium-sized businesses to the Azure DDoS Protection family (SMBs). At Microsoft’s Ignite conference, the DDoS IP Protection for SMBs product was unveiled, and it is currently available for public preview.

The goal of DDoS IP Protection for SMBs, according to Microsoft, is to offer SMBs enterprise-grade DDoS (distributed denial of service) protection at a competitive price. Microsoft’s Azure DDoS Protection family now has two programs, DDoS IP Protection for SMBs and DDoS Network Protection for enterprises, thanks to the new product.

DDoS IP protection for SMBs can safeguard even a single public IP address. According to Microsoft, it provides the same services used by bigger organizations. Through constant monitoring and adaptive tuning intended to guarantee the application is always protected, the new product can assist businesses in defending against L3/L4 DDoS attacks. Additionally, all Azure users who use public IP addresses are safeguarded as a result.

Attacks classified as L3/L4 are DDoS attacks that are volumetric in nature. Network infrastructure is the target of an attack at layer 3, and transport layer infrastructure is the target of an attack at layer 4. The brand-new product provides workbooks, mitigation reports and flow logs, the Azure Sentinel data connector, traffic monitoring, automatic attack mitigation, and firewall manager integration.

Cost protection, a discount on the web application firewall, and rapid DDoS response support are all features of the product’s enterprise edition that are not present in the SMB grade. IP Protection can be turned on by SMBs using PowerShell or the Azure preview portal. With the help of integrations, Azure DDoS Protection provides real-time metrics, alerts, and insights with other Azure services.

Read More: DDoS Attack and its Types!

How every business is vulnerable to DDoS attacks?

Attacks using the technique known as distributed denial of service are making the news practically every day. The number of DDoS attacks increased by approx. 450% in 2022, which is 6.5 times greater than in 2021.

During the same time, the number of advanced DDoS attacks that are often targeted, also known as smart attacks, increased by approx. 35 % over the past few years, financial institutions have been the most common DDoS and DoS assault targets overall.

Does this imply that companies and organizations that are not involved in the banking and financial services sector are not at risk of being attacked by DDoS? In no way! Every company could be hit by a DDoS attack. Continue reading to know the reasons why each organization could be a target.

Weak security and DDoS prevention

Even though the technology is getting better, many companies still use old firewalls and signature-based traffic monitoring to protect against DDoS. Traditional security methods aren’t enough to protect against today’s complex threats. Even attacks that don’t last long can hurt money and reputation.

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) are just as much a target as significant corporations regarding attacks. As attacks on bigger companies make the news, SMEs often think they won’t be attacked. They don’t do much to protect against DDoS. DDoS attacks on SMEs are made in this easy-going way.

Making it easier to attack

The pandemic has pushed the government, non-profits, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to digitize. BYOT devices are used remotely from shared networks that aren’t always safe. The attack surface and DDoS risk of every organization are getting bigger. The problem worsens when companies don’t understand the crucial DDoS protection and instead use generic hosting, ISP, and cloud solutions.

DDoS attacks are simple and cheap

Most DDoS attacks in the past few years lasted less than 4 hours. Even though episodes are shorter, they are more intense, happen more often, and hurt more. Today, innovative, multi-vector and sophisticated DDoS attacks are easy to set up and don’t cost much owing to the following reasons:

  • Innovations in technology
  • Malware and botnets are easy to get
  • Hacking and DDoS attacks as a service

So, attackers don’t have to work hard. DDoS attacks make money for the people who do them.

Competitors and employees who are unhappy can benefit

Websites that go down often (usually because of DDoS attacks) or have pages that have been changed lose their search engine rankings and reputation. To lose search engine rankings and reputations, DDoS is used by competitors and employees who aren’t happy with their jobs.

For Amusement

DDoS attacks may occur for no apparent reason.  It’s a common misperception that every attack has a specific motive. But this isn’t the case at all. It does not matter how big or small the system or website is, many hackers experience an adrenaline rush when they successfully breach it.

Seeking Vengeance

Getting revenge is a frequent cause of DDoS attacks which can affect governments, businesses, or both. Attacks are not always used to express an opinion, but rather to target the enemy.

DDoS Hacktivism

As mentioned above, DDoS attacks don’t always involve data theft. Any opinion or demand can be strongly expressed using this technique. Online action can have a greater and quicker impact than participating in a protest or strike in person. DDoS is frequently used to express support or opposition to a particular cause. It could be about politics, but it could also be about a business or bank, an ethical issue, or an online game.

Politics agenda

The newest battleground is the Internet. DDoS attacks can also occur between nations or governments. Government websites may be the targets of DDoS attacks. Many people believe that governments or political parties frequently engage in DDoS attacks against one another, even though it is possible that non-political hackers hit the websites. This has been a good way to show political disagreement because most governments use the Internet to talk to each other and run their countries.

Unfriendly Competition

There is competition in the digital world as many businesses move their physical stores online.

Nearly half of the companies think their competitors used DDoS assaults to interrupt services. After all, if your competitors’ website is down, all the visitors will go to yours. Additionally, the reputation of your competitors’ brands is damaged, resulting in favorable associations with your business. How to stay secure?

Taking a proactive approach to security and enrolling an intelligent, controlled, and advanced DDoS protection solution is the most effective method to keep the organization secured from DDoS. One may avoid being a target of a distributed denial of service attack with the assistance of advanced solutions available in the market, which also improve the website’s speed and functionality.

DDOs Attack: Causes and preventive measures!

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) assaults has been used by hackers to take down some of the biggest websites in the world since the turn of the new millennium.

DDoS attacks are shockingly easy to pull off, and every year there are more and more of them. They affect a vast number of websites all over the world.

Denial of service attacks is also known as DDoS or simply denial of service (DoS). During a short time, a website gets a lot of requests. This is done to try to overwhelm the site and make it stop working. Unlike denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, distributed attacks simultaneously come from more than one place.

How to recognize an attack on a website?

Certainly, it’s critical to correctly identify a DDoS assault as soon as enterprises suspect one is to blame. Nevertheless, it can be difficult to tell the difference between an average traffic increase and one spurred on by a DDoS attack. However, your website might be under attack if poor performance lasts days after a sale or marketing campaign rather than just a few hours. Another symptom of an assault is a significant increase in spam emails. A firm can expect tens of thousands of requests simultaneously over minutes or even hours if the website targets a DDoS attack. Automated requests, which can come from many different places depending on the attack’s size, are not caused by more people visiting a website.

Why do DDoS attacks happen?

Hackers carry out DDoS assaults for a variety of reasons. For example, a competitor can attempt to hurt your firm by attacking your website. A hacker can try to target your website to steal customer and company information.

A DDoS assault can prevent you from serving consumers or closing sales if you sell products and services through your website. That can cost your company time and money, not to mention harming its reputation.  It is much preferable to prevent a DDoS attack than to deal with its aftereffects.

Simple but effective tactics to mitigate DDoS attacks 

  1. Broaden the bandwidth

Making your hosting infrastructure “DDoS resistant” is one of the most fundamental safeguards against DDoS attacks. Essentially, this means setting aside adequate bandwidth to manage traffic peaks brought on by potential cyberattacks.

Do remember, though, that increasing bandwidth alone is not a sufficient defense against DDoS attacks. Increased bandwidth does raise the hurdle that attackers must clear before they can conduct a successful DDoS attack, but to fully protect your website, you need always combine this with other mitigation strategies.

2. Implement DDoS defense on the server

Some web providers offer DDoS mitigation solutions at the server level. Since web hosting companies do not always provide this service, one should check with their web host. Some businesses offer it as a complimentary service, while others charge extra for it. Everything is dependent on the hosting plan and provider.

3. Reduce the attack surface

Reducing attackable surface area to limit attacker options and enable the construction of defenses in a single location is one of the first methods to mitigate DDoS attacks. We must ensure that no ports, protocols, or applications are opened for our application or resources from which they do not anticipate receiving any communication.

4. Purchase quality network hardware.

High-quality network hardware purchases can aid in detecting and even completely blocking unanticipated traffic spikes on your website. The network gear includes all the elements that enable data transmission across a network, including the router, the cables used to link computers, network switches, and interface cards.

One can set up network hardware to stop DDoS attacks if one invests significantly in quality hardware.  This strategy can keep corporate software running smoothly and protected from all types of external users.

5. Use a hybrid or cloud-based solution 

You’ll have access to limitless bandwidth if you migrate to the cloud- or hybrid-based services. Many DDoS-affected websites are resource-constrained, and if you switch to a cloud-based service, it can help you stay protected.

DDoS mitigation strategies should be considered as soon as possible because DDoS assaults are on the rise, and each one has a high likelihood of having disastrous effects on any company, regardless of size or scope. You may strengthen the security of your website and defend it from cyberattacks by using the strategies mentioned above.

DDoS attacks are becoming more common, and when they work, they can cause damage to billions of dollars. Organizations can’t completely stop DDoS attacks because they have no control over who visits their website. A DDoS attack can’t be avoided, but it will happen less often if organizations use the above-mentioned preventive measures.

Neustar Security Services Releases DDoS & Application Security Data Centre in Dubai

Neustar Security Services, a leading provider of cloud-delivered solutions, recently announced that it will launch DDOS mitigation and application security data centre in Dubai in October.

Neustar Security Services’ expansion into the Middle East satisfies a rising need for a local security presence that can guarantee data sovereignty and low latency performance for clients in the area. The addition of the Dubai node further demonstrates the organization’s dedication to making ongoing investments in its ultra-secure infrastructure, enabling Neustar Security Services to maintain the largest and best-connected distributed denial of service (DDoS) and application security network in the world.

Neustar Security Services’ most recent growth is a natural extension of its continued dedication to enhancing the Ultra Secure line of products. The company has invested resources in re-architecting its infrastructure for more than five years, greatly increasing network capacity and performance for DNS and DDoS services. In order to meet the growing need for application security, it has integrated new options for cloud WAF and bot control into its Ultra Secure family of services.

Carlos Morales, Senior Vice President, Solutions, at Neustar Security Services, said, “As a thriving financial and commercial hub, Dubai is home to many new and expanded businesses which have contributed to heightened demand for local security that can ensure data remains safely within the region. By deploying this new state-of-the-art data centre, Neustar Security Services will provide low latency access to cutting-edge solutions and features that address a host of risks in today’s complex and ever-evolving threat environment.”

The Dubai node boosts Neustar Security Services’ DDoS cleaning capability, which is already at 12+ Tbps globally. With the help of the new data centre, customers in the Middle East will have access to local, end-to-end defence against the most frequent threats to web-based infrastructure and services, including as the OWASP top 10 threats, volumetric DDoS, and application-level DDoS attacks.

Colin Doherty, CEO of Neustar Security Services, said, “Our new Dubai node is just the latest in a series of significant investments in scaling our global cloud capacity and capability. We look forward to continuing to demonstrate our commitment to customers and partners around the world in delivering the industry’s premier cloud security service.”

NETSCOUT introduces AI resolution for DDoS assaults!

An industry leader in cybersecurity, service assurance, and business analytics solutions, NetScout, today announced the release of a cutting-edge AI-based solution that will allow its customers to instantly and automatically block a large percentage of DDoS attacks, streamlining operations and lowering the risk to their companies.

In order to provide unparalleled visibility into DDoS attack activity on the Internet, the solution uses NETSCOUT’s ATLAS network. Multiple ATLAS datasets are analyzed, curated, and correlated using artificial intelligence. The ATLAS Security Engineering and Response Team (ASERT) at NETSCOUT developed this automated intelligent pipeline to find botnet members and other network infrastructure actively participating in DDoS attacks.

“This is an innovative way to block DDoS attacks,” stated Darren Anstee, chief technology officer for security at NETSCOUT. “Omnis AIF, which incorporates the new DDoS reputation feed, takes an intelligence-based approach providing customers with faster, more comprehensive, and more automated solutions. Our approach is different because we leverage global observations in DDoS attack activity to drive local automation and response. As a result, we can dramatically lower the risk of business impact due to DDoS attack for our customers.”

TMS and AED can use this data to automatically detect and stop botnet-generated DDoS attacks such as reflection/amplification, direct-path TCP state exhaustion, application-layer, and encrypted attacks. Omnis AIF’s analysis is based on NETSCOUT’s unique, global DDoS attack visibility, which covers over one-third of all Internet traffic and millions of DDoS attacks. This global intelligence can then be automatically applied for local defense.

Read More: DDoS Attack and its Types!

G-Core Labs Provides Protection Against SYN Flood attacks!

G-Core Labs provides DDoS protection against SYN Flood attacks. The XDP-based solution, which was created in collaboration with Intel, does not require a separate DDoS protection server role. G-Core Labs, in collaboration with Intel, has developed a stand-alone solution based on 3rd generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors to better protect its customers against such attacks. With this new approach, volumetric attacks are evenly distributed across CDN servers, eliminating the need for a separate DDoS protection server, and lowering the performance demands on each individual CDN node.

Andrew Faber, Head of cybersecurity at G-Core Labs said, “Our long-term cooperation with Intel in the development of the solution, guarantees many things for the future. First of all, it’s the flexibility of development for the customer and faster technical support. Secondly, it’s the possibility of further joint testing and upgrading a solution on the latest Intel processors available to us at the earliest possible stage, to provide the best protection to the customers.”

G-Core has tested this method of protection in both test labs and with its customer, online gaming powerhouse Wargaming. Wargaming adds a signature to every UDP packet sent from the end-user to the game server to combat DDoS attacks. By running this countermeasure on its servers, G-Core Labs assisted Wargaming in ‘offloading’ such checks from their network, ensuring that only ‘clean’ traffic reaches customers. In the event of an attack, G-Core Labs’ servers drop all traffic with invalid signatures, allowing only validated traffic to proceed to the protected server.

For G-Core and its customers, such testing of the XDP-based solutions against SYN Flood attacks has been successful in scenarios where the DDoS protection suite will be executed on every CDN node. This is ideal for G-long-term Core’s goals, and the company’s continued partnership with Intel means greater development flexibility for its customers and faster technical support. Additionally, this situation establishes a positive precedent for future collaborative testing, ensuring that the G-Core solution can consistently offer its clients the best protection.

ThreatX Introduced Quick Start Program for API Protection

ThreatX has introduced the API Protection Quick Start Program, which is designed to aid organizations in better protecting their APIs by quickly deploying real-time protection against botnet, DDoS, and complex, multi-mode attacks.

APIs are a gold mine for attackers because they allow applications to share data and are increasingly being used to streamline communication between consumers and business partners. As a result, API adoption has outpaced security teams’ ability to protect against threats, leaving the connected systems vulnerable. While some vendor offerings claim to provide complete API security, they frequently lack bot protection and real-time blocking capabilities, leaving customers vulnerable to threats.

Billy Toomey, Vice President of Sales at ThreatX commented, “We’ve seen firsthand that security teams are struggling to understand how to protect their organization’s APIs against real-time threats, and they’re often trying to do so with scarce time, resources, and human power. We’re thrilled to launch this program, and are confident it will empower small, midsized, and enterprise customers to begin building their API security programs with the full support of ThreatX SOC.”

ThreatX Quick Start program helps businesses get started with API protection by allowing them to build their API security program without putting their resources at risk. The program provides real-time monitoring and blocking of API attacks, allowing protection without the need for additional tools or attack data that must be analyzed after the fact. The fully managed program offers customers support from ThreatX Security Operations Center (SOC), which offers 24/7 coverage and expertise.

Read more articles:

API Security Should Be Your Priority in 2022

DDoS Protection Preparation Guide

DDoS attacks can bombard an organization’s network with traffic taking down online services and applications resulting in the prevention of genuine users from accessing the firm’s services. They often lead to lost revenues, loss of customers and damage to the brand. Nevertheless, the fact of the matter is that there is a lot to be done. Even though an enterprise firm can’t predict when an attack will occur the steps can be taken to minimize the impact of an attack and set up a backup to recover fast.

List Vulnerable Assets

To protect assets from DDoS attacks first step for security teams is to find the most vulnerable and valuable assets. They need to start by listing all attackable assets. Example – Servers, Applications, IP addresses and Domains.

Mapping assets will help security teams to identify points of vulnerability and construct defensive strategies.

Estimate Potential Damages

Assess the value and importance of each asset to properly allocate protection money/resources. An important point that companies should consider is certain damages are direct, while others can be indirect.

Loss of clients – Client loss is one of the most serious possible repercussions of a successful DDoS attack.

Productivity loss – Firms that rely on online services like email, online storage or databases, the unavailability of these services will result in a productivity loss.

Direct revenue loss – If a company’s online service generates revenue effectively on a regular basis, any downtime will result in a direct revenue loss. 

Brand damage – Accessibility and the digital experience are more closely linked to a company’s brand. A cyberattack that results in a loss of online service will have an impact on a company’s brand and reputation.

Assigning Tasks

The responsibility of managing DDoS attacks should be distributed to respective people – 

1. CISO and security team should manage the overall DDoS attack coordinating with other teams.

2. Network administrators should communicate with the security team to mitigate DDoS attacks.

3. Teams handling specific applications or online services like cloud storage should coordinate with the security team to provide details and assistance if there’s a DDoS attack.

Deploy and Manage DDoS Solution

After assessing the most vulnerable assets and expenses security team should set up an attack detection strategy. This strategy should be designed in consideration with the DDoS solution deployed by the company. How DDoS solution is being deployed on the cloud or on-premises?

Routing entire traffic through a firewall reduces the need for a diversion. This form of security is perfect for a critical application that simply cannot afford any downtime.

The backup must be created. A separate backup of the most important or critical assets should be created. While creating backup it must be integrated and tested with restoring process and systems to make restoration seamless.

After deploying the DDoS solution, it should be scaled up with the growth of the organization as new customers, systems, users, and devices are added. Once the DDoS solution is set up, the mitigation strategies for various DDoS attack scenarios must be planned.

Update and maintenance schedule of the DDoS solution should be planned. The database of malicious traffic like IP addresses must be updated on regular basis by the vendor. The regular trials of various defensive strategies of DDoS must be conducted with the assistance of the vendor.

The key to a DDoS solution lies in filtering or shifting possibly dangerous traffic away from networks and application infrastructure.

Opsview Introduces Two New Products – Opsview Log Analytics and Network Topology

Opsview, a firm that delivers a broader view into dynamic IT operations, has released two new products: Opsview Log Analytics and Network Topology.

Opsview Log Analytics connects with Opsview Monitor and Opsview Cloud to assist IT Operations teams in identifying the root causes of warnings and predicting security problems before they cause business disruption. These critical log events are directly correlated with metrics in Opsview’s IT infrastructure monitoring solution, resulting in a single pane of glass view with detailed insights that show employees why issues come up.

“Opsview Log Analytics automates the manual processes of log management. Combined with Opsview Monitor and Opsview Cloud, it provides a faster time to resolution for IT Operations teams. With SIEM functionality, Opsview Log Analytics correlates events and identifies security incidents such as brute force attacks or DDoS,” said Mike Walton, CEO of Opsview.

With the inclusion of Network Topology to the Opsview Network Analyzer module, IT Operations teams can collaborate with their networking teams to create a unified view of an organization’s IT estate. Network Topology automates network discovery, lowers the security risk of unidentified hosts in the environment, and detects network misconfigurations.

“With Opsview’s Network Topology providing overlays with real-time status information, this will provide valuable time savings to IT teams as well as reducing potential security risks. The risk of the unknown is drastically reduced with Network Topology,” said Scott Heyhoe, VP Products at Opsview.

Involta Releases Air Gap Solution to Protect Crucial Data From Cybercrime

Involta, a provider of cloud computing, hybrid IT and data services firm, announced the launch of  Involta Air Gap to secure business backup, as digital migration continues to advance into the cloud. Involta Air Gap provides robust air security — the space between working and backup — to stop cyber criminals from accessing important information, significantly mitigating the severity of expensive ransomware attacks.

With increased cybercrime at corporate level, this solution is vital. Cybercrimes have increased significantly over the past year in terms of high-profile ranching campaigns and viruses, malware and DoS (denial of service). This has led to unprecedented cyber and information security spending among businesses. Research forecasts that the world will have a global cost of 11.4 million dollars every minute by the end of 2021.

“In the arena of cybersecurity, ransomware attacks target back-ups, crippling an organization’s ability to access its critical data. Involta Air Gap builds on cybersecurity measures that may already be in place and acknowledges that securing enterprise data in a separate location is critical. The premise is that a cybercriminal can’t access back-ups if there is no connection between environments. Involta Air Gap was developed to help enterprises win the war against cybercrime, especially those using AWS and Veeam cloud solutions,” said Mark Cooley, Vice President of Security and Compliance, Involta.

It continues to follow AWS’s elevated relations with AWS as the AWS Partner Network’s Advanced Consulting partner and its Veeam Cloud and Service Provider (VCSP) status in the AWS Partner Network (APN).