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TELUS Business

Protect your organization from the DDOS cybersecurity storm

Security · Oct 25, 2016

One of the most visible types of cyberattacks your organization can experience is the Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack. This type of attack can directly affect your online presence, as it disrupts your customers’ ability to access your websites and mobile applications. Most organizations do not publish attacks that they have experienced, but there are documented cases out there.

Not so long ago, a huge DDOS attack impacted a number of online services. Dyn, a large DNS host, was subject to DDOS attack, which affected many organizations that use its services.

The cybersecurity storm

To truly understand a DDOS attack, think of a city that experiences a huge storm. Normally, a city’s drainage system is able to handle every day water volumes from watering lawns, washing cars and rinsing down patios. Storm drains are in place to collect that water and transport it out to sea. When a storm rolls in, the sudden deluge of water overwhelms the drains resulting in flooding.

It’s a similar scenario on the Internet. When a large number of devices distributed around the Internet generates and targets a flood of malicious traffic at an organization, its Internet services gateway and/or web applications are overwhelmed, leading to online service failure and negative business impact. This is a DDOS attack.

Why DDOS matters to your organization

Protecting your organization from cybersecurity threats is an increasingly complex problem to address because the variety and type of threats continue to evolve. A DDOS attack floods the pipe that connects your organization to the outside world; therefore, DDOS attacks are best handled outside of your organization’s network, before they reach your traditional firewall or IDS perimeter security. 

DDOS attacks are happening all of the time and can hit your organization without warning – to see a real-time visualization of DDOS attacks happening around the world right now have a look at the Google Ideas and Arbor Networks Digital Attack Map.

DDOS attacks specifically affect an organization’s online presence – the ability to complete online transactions and reputation tend to suffer the most. Common motives for DDOS attacks include:

  1. Extortion – threat actors are known to ransom organizations with impending DDOS attacks that can jeopardize an organization’s brand. These attacks are often targeted during critical periods, such as a product launch. 

  2. Political motives – organizations such as Anonymous attempt to make a political point through their DDOS attacks.

  3. Distraction – increasingly a DDOS attack can be one part of a larger, more sophisticated attack. While an organization’s security department is focused on the high-profile DDOS attack, a parallel attack on another high value asset, such as corporate data, takes place.

Protecting your organization from DDOS

TELUS has a number of ways to help you deal with DDOS attacks. Our expert team of network assurance engineers protects organizations from known network vulnerabilities by continually monitoring and enhancing the TELUS network. Recently, TELUS launched a service to help our Business Internet customers deal with DDOS attacks by deploying scrubbing centres within the TELUS network. The TELUS DDOS protection capability offered to TELUS Business Internet customers is built upon the same technology, expertise and experience that TELUS uses to protect its own internal network. 

To learn more on how TELUS can protect your organization from cybersecurity threats please reach out to your TELUS account team for more information.

Strengthen your cyber security stance with TELUS Security.

Authored by:
TELUS Business
TELUS Business