Internet carrier Arelion is expanding its partnership with NetScout. The deal will help strengthen its Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation capabilities. As a tier 1 carrier, Arelion faces constant DDoS attacks across its network against it and its customers. This is about improving the tools it has to detect and mitigate attacks.
Scott Nichols, chief commercial officer at Arelion commented, “As a Tier-1 Internet carrier supporting the majority of global Internet traffic, this continued collaboration reflects our ongoing investment in best-of-breed network security solutions to protect the technology ecosystem.
“Our partnership combines Arelion’s global network performance and NETSCOUT’s leading Arbor DDoS attack protection solutions to provide world-class experiences for our customers.”
Improved monitoring and security
DDoS attacks are on the rise in frequency and size. In Q3/2024, Cloudflare claims to have mitigated nearly 6 million DDoS attacks. It was a 49% increase on the previous quarter and a 55% increase over the previous year.
The biggest DDoS attack ever mitigated was also reported by Cloudflare, measuring 5.6 terabits per second and 666 million packets per second at its peak. While it lasted just 80 seconds, it was part of a wider set of high-volume attacks. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales events due soon, it is highly likely that we will see larger and more sustained attacks before the end of 2024.
For Arelion, therefore, there is an absolute business need to ensure it has the most robust protection against DDoS attacks. As a tier-1 carrier, it carries traffic for a large number of enterprises, governments and other bodies. That means it and its customers are a primary target for DDoS attacks. Its network is also likely to be used by attackers as a conduit to attack other organisations.
The company says that this expansion of its deal with NetScout will give it more granular visibility of traffic patterns. That will enable it to detect anomalies faster and respond to attacks faster. It will also augment its DDoS attack mitigation capabilities with Adaptive DDoS protection. That, it claims will “improve its defenses against newer DDoS attack vectors and techniques, including carpet bombing.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean?
The rising size and volume of DDoS attacks will only continue. It puts operators and organisations under pressure to detect and mitigate them quickly. Without that, they will quickly see significant impacts on both their businesses and critical services.
As a tier-1 operator, Arelion is showing its customers that it is doing everything possible to ensure continued communications. This expansion provides it with key tooling it can deploy across the business to detect and remediate attacks.
