Posted on December 22, 2018 at 3:20 PM
BBC Seeking Protection in Fear of a Massive DDoS Attack
The number of DDoS attacks has been increasing constantly in the last several years, with 2018 seeing an extremely high number of DDoS-related incidents. With a situation like this, numerous corporations have decided to improve their security in an attempt to protect themselves. This also includes the broadcaster BBC, which has announced that it is prepared to invest £500,000 in new software that might prevent even the largest attacks from crashing their servers.
The BBC aims to protect its internet network from the “highest sustained volumetric based attack seen on the internet”, but it also aims to do it without affecting their users’ experience during their interactions with the BBC online services. The protection contract will supposedly be valid for three years, with the potential to be extended to five.
The broadcaster also stated that their internet network carries all of their audience-facing traffic, as well as CDN origin traffic. In addition, their internet network also provides transit for the corporate network. With all of this in mind, it is understandable why it is crucial for the network to remain intact.
Kirill Kasavchenko, the Principle Security Technologist EMEA at NETSCOUT, commented by saying that BBC’s budget should be enough to cover the amount of protection they want, without additional requirements. According to him, BBC will have to pay for software, equipment, personnel, as well as proper “cleaning” of their traffic.
DDoS attacks growing in numbers and power
Kasavchenko also stated that the largest DDoS attack ever recorded (1.7Tbs) happened fairly recently, in February of this year. While there are not too many attacks of this size out there right now, there are quite a few middle-sized attacks (100Gbs-500Gbs), while the smaller ones are happening much more often. He added that his company managed to notice a cyclical nature in DDoS attacks. They also found that the complexity of such attacks is growing as well, with the focus being on the weaponization of IoT devices.
Finally, the BBC has decided to post a deadline for interested online protection providers’ applications. Those interested in collaborating with the broadcaster can approach it by January 24, 2019. While the company may invite its tech partner Atos to assist in making the decision regarding which service to pick, Atos will simply provide an opinion, and the final decision will rest with the BBC.
According to the research house Forrester, the top five providers of anti-DDoS tools include Arbor Networks (now NETSCOUT Arbor), Akamai Technologies, Imperva, Cloudflare, and Radware.
