Data Centers Invest Most in DDoS Security in 2013

Not only have DoS (Denial of service) and DDoS (Distributed Denial of service) attacks become emerging trends in cyber security world, but they are also increasing in complexity and ferocity.  According to a report from Infonetics Research, data centers, IT and cloud service providers will invest heavily in DDoS attack prevention in 2013 due to widespread attacks over the past year.

Why data centers?

Data centers are measured by uptime. They cannot compromise on full time availability of critical services running inside them. The Internet-facing property of data centers have rendered them new targets of DoS/DDoS attacks.

Here are a few reasons as to why attackers find data centers as potential target:

• Attackers get more theoretical benefit from their work. They are able to cause more collateral damage to colocation data centers due to its multi-tenant and shared resources nature.
• High profile and critical applications run at data center environment makes it perfect place to extract fruits of an attack.
• Virtualization, in addition to bringing huge benefits to data centers, creates new avenues and new security challenges.

Need for improved security

Many data centers are upgrading from 1Gig and 10Gig Ethernet to 40/100 Gig Ethernet for increased reliability and bandwidth. Operators are thus finding it difficult and expensive to adjust their previous security solutions with the upgraded networking gear within data centers. They are going for large security vendor firms and custom solutions for the security needs.

Principal analyst for security at Infonetics Research, Jeff Wilson wrote: “For the most part, data center buyers want to buy security solutions from large, established companies who offer a broad range of products—they have a lot riding on their security implementations, and they need a large neck to choke if something goes wrong,” “But there’s always room for small providers who offer highly-innovative solutions.”

While there are many security tool vendors, most data center providers confirm that there isn’t a single true security leader for data center security. The variety of different software, hardware and virtual appliance security offerings available tend to make the issue more complex, requiring multi-vendor solutions.

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Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.