CenturyLink announces mitigation appliance option for DDoS Mitigation Service

CenturyLink, Inc. has announced the launch of a mitigation appliance option for CenturyLink Technology Solutions’ DDoS Mitigation Service that protects businesses’ IT infrastructure against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

A DDoS attack occurs when a large number of compromised systems attack a target, such as a website, and overwhelm it with activity that causes the target to become unresponsive and thereby denies legitimate users with access to the system. DDoS attacks have grown more frequent, with nearly 50 percent of enterprise IT leaders reporting that their organizations experienced one or more DDoS attack in the last three years, according to independent research commissioned by CenturyLink Technology Solutions in 2013.

CenturyLink’s DDoS Mitigation Service detects attack traffic – at the network level and through a mitigation appliance – before it impacts an organization’s infrastructure. A team of security experts monitor CenturyLink’s global mitigation system, which analyzes traffic 24/7 and diverts and scrubs potentially malicious packets. The solution protects environments whether they are accessed via CenturyLink’s network, one of CenturyLink’s more than 55 data centers, customer premises or a third-party data center or network.

“DDoS attacks continue to evolve, becoming more sophisticated in scale and complexity and resulting in greater downtime for organizations,” said Chris Richter, vice president, managed security products and services, at CenturyLink Technology Solutions. “We designed our DDoS service to enable global protection through multiple cleansing centers around the world and flexible commercial terms. With the integration of a network-based solution with an on-site appliance, we can further serve businesses that require always-on mitigation and deliver protection for multiple third-party networks while providing full visibility and reporting across all of their networks.”

CenturyLink’s DDoS Mitigation Service with the new mitigation appliance option employs advanced layers of defense, improving availability of customer’s infrastructure and reducing the likelihood of future DDoS attacks. It also keeps security costs manageable, with a pricing model based on usage and no required hardware or software.

“Businesses need to be proactive and vigilant when it comes to protecting their assets from potential DDoS attacks,” said Christina Richmond, program director, security services, at IDC. “With CenturyLink’s new mitigation appliance option, the company moves to a higher echelon of DDoS mitigation providers that offer true defense-in-depth designed to mitigate DDoS attacks at multiple layers and further extends its already-strong security portfolio.”