The German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) has granted Link11 a patent on its cutting-edge DDoS protection technology.
Link11’s invention which is listed under the title: “Fending off an attack on a computer system via a network” refers to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which are among the most common cyberattacks on companies and government organizations. The objective of the attacks is to overload web servers, online services, or entire networks. Attackers use numerous hijacked computers, servers, or Internet of Things (IoT) devices), controlled by a command-and-control (C&C) server, which simultaneously attack a target in the form of a botnet. Usually, the attacks aim at overloading the access link, the firewall resources, the web servers, and the database servers. As a result, web pages, web applications, and business processes are slowed down or go offline.
The core of Link11’s newly patented technology is an external DDoS filter that can run in the cloud. It detects, filters, and blocks attacks before they can even reach the IT systems of the company under attack. The filter categorizes and sorts the mixed data traffic, which comprises both legitimate and illegitimate IPs during an ongoing DDoS attack. Within fractions of a second, statistical behavioral properties help to divide the traffic sources into “wanted”, “unwanted”, and IP addresses with “special authorization”. Thus, legitimate visitors can continue to access the website even during the DDoS attack.
Unlike conventional protection solutions, Link11 also stores all attacks that have been fended off in a sequence database. The filter algorithms of the DDoS protection analyze every attack sequence and compare it with the existing data. This enables companies to predict similar incidents, resulting in an even faster reaction.
Karsten Desler and Jens-Philipp Jung, who invented the technology and are managing directors and founders of Link11, explain why the patent is so important. They said: “Early detection of highly complex attacks is imperative in order to be able to mitigate them before they can cause damage in the companies. The rerouting of the data traffic through an external DDoS filter is essential for finding the various attack techniques and strategies in real time even in large data streams, evaluating them, and translating the results into effective reactions. The application of our patented procedure guarantees the DDoS-protected operation of IT systems. There is no other solution on the market that is able to do this in such a reliable way.”
The patent demonstrates how innovative and unique the Link11’s DDoS protection is. Link11 is proud to be the innovation leader in cloud security, providing companies with reliable protection against cyberattacks.
