Emergency deployment in Italy: Italian internet service provider Genesys Informatica was helped by Link11 to successfully repel a very large DDoS attack in May 2019. The infrastructure protection provided by Link11 was deployed within just a few hours to the Italian ISP. Genesys Informatica was then able to fend off one of the largest DDoS attacks in Italian history. Stefano Fiaschi, Manager Cloud Computing at Genesys, has this advice to all of his colleagues and peers world-wide: “You have to stay alert at all times to ensure DDoS protection; never rest on your laurels or be complacent about security.”
Companies need strong leadership and processes so that their digital transformation initiatives can be protected and secured with professional security measures. This field of activity is increasingly being assigned to a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). This person should identify, communicate, and manage information risks. Management should also extend beyond the purely technical area to the company’s legal department and executive board.
However, a direct reporting line to the board does not guarantee that IT security is really in the hands of executive management and given the priority that it should have within the company. Every organization must find its own chain of responsibility, which ensures that the concerns of the head of security are actually listened to and actioned. Ultimately, the specific design of governance structures will also have to be the result of a comprehensive risk analysis within the company.
In many cases, close cooperation with the CEO will be a good way to accomplish this. The reporting line of CISO-to-Chief Compliance Officer (CCO)- to-CEO can also create a good balance between the CIO, who is driving digital change, and the CISO, who is concerned about IT security issues.
In today’s networked world, banks and financial service providers are among the most attractive targets for cyber attackers.
According to a recent study by Carbon Black, two thirds (67 percent) of financial institutions and other companies in the financial sector have experienced an increase in the frequency of cyberattacks and attempted hacks.
These digital bank robbers probe organizations’ digital infrastructures for security gaps and vulnerabilities that they can exploit. In addition to financially motivated attacks, the perpetrators are often focused on destruction, for example by deleting vital data or paralyzing online services.
Even though the financial sector is one of the pioneers in IT security due to its legal and regulatory requirements, hackers are determined – and often succeed in overcoming organizations’ security. 70 percent of the institutes surveyed by Carbon Black stated that financially motivated attackers were their greatest concern.
RTL Germany Media Group’s production, broadcast and IT company CBC has switched from ad hoc protection to the permanent DDoS protection of Link11. The on-premise networks now only receive filtered B2B traffic from Link11. This means there are no delays when it comes to averting risks. The potential danger of being exposed to DDoS attacks is still assessed as “real” by the Cologne-based company.
Every third company in Germany became a victim of cyber-attacks in 2018. This is the result of the Cyber Security Survey conducted by the Federal Office for Information Security. In almost 90% of the cases, the attackers were successful and caused business interruptions. This, in turn, produced costs for forensic investigations and the restoration of IT systems. Moreover, every fifth company affected suffered reputational damage.
More and more business-critical processes are ending up in the cloud. The number of apps and devices connected to it will continue to grow in the coming years. This not only requires a strategy to deal with the business aspects and process optimization. A security strategy that also considers the latest threat scenarios is essential as well. Companies should therefore draw on external advice in order to explore how cloud-based security solutions help to minimize the risk of attacks.
The easiest way for companies to defend themselves against the particularly feared DDoS attacks seems to be to block cloud services, if the attacks are from Amazon or Azure. As the companies often access these services themselves, this would also interrupt their own connection and business processes would come to a standstill. Companies should therefore draw on external advice in order to explore how cloud-based security solutions help to minimize the risk of attacks. AI-based systems promise effective protection that outperforms conventional solutions by far.
Leading consumer delivery company Hermes Germany is using Link11´s cloud-based DDoS protection solutions in order to protect their whole IT infrastructer and web applications against all kinds of Distributed Denial of Servcie (DDoS) attacks.
After being increasingly concerned about the rapid growth in DDoS attacks in 2017, the logistics service provider decided to invest in a solution that protect their entire IT infrastructure including VPN and mail servers, firewalls, applications and web domains against these kind of attacks. Read the full case study and learn more.