BT has announced the addition of BT Assure DDoS mitigation to its security stack, part of the “Cloud of Clouds”. It has also introduced a showcase centre in its Sevenoaks, Kent office to help businesses determine their security requirements.

DDos Mitigation added

BT hads added a DDOS mitigation service called “BT Assure DDoS mitigation technologies” to its security cloud, adding the new feature to BT Assure Cloud Identity access management and BT Assure Cloud Firewall. The service will clean network traffic of potential malware or dubious requests before it touches the customer network. The service was originally launched in 2014 according to the release but is now available globally as part of the “Cloud of Clouds”.

As the platform itself sits at the edge of the BT network this means that the “bad” packets are intercepted and eliminated before they enter the BT network, which will improve performance for customers. The inference is that either all customers will at least partially benefit from this technology if they are on the BT network as one would think that BT wouldn’t want any malware passing through their nodes, or they are letting malware through for those customers that don’t take up the service. The truth lies somewhere in between as BT will only be cleaning packets that are not targeted at customers, but will be cleaning up random attacks that impact their network rather than specific IP addresses.

But I thought DDoS attacks were less common now?

This is not the case, BT research indicated that 41% of organisations globally were hit by DDoS attacks during 2014 and 78% of those targeted were hit more than once. A recent Panda security survey also showed that Malware was reaching record levels and it is easy to say that virtually no company on the internet has not had at least one cybersecurity attack.

While cyber-insurance is getting more and more news now, with companies starting to offer and take up policies, there is still an onus on security teams to defend as best they can against the simple attacks, such as DDoS.

Mark Hughes CEO BT Security (Source BT)
Mark Hughes CEO BT Security

Mark Hughes, CEO, BT Security, commenting in the press release said: “Security is at the very top of the agenda for CIOs, and business leaders in general, when they look at leveraging the opportunities of the cloud. The risks associated with cloud computing are another business risk to be managed through robust governance practices, and those risks increase as organisations embrace cloud services hosted outside of their own estate. Our vision of the ‘Cloud of Clouds’ brings security to the heart of BT’s cloud services integration offer. “

“Our global network already has very strong security features, including firewall services embedded throughout. Our cloud identity management solution ensures appropriate access for employees, customers and partners to the cloud or on premise applications irrespective of their location. Today, we are proud to open the doors to our new global security showcase as we announce the global availability of our DDoS mitigation service.”

Why BT

BT Cloud of Clouds is growing stronger, the vision is to create a series of integrated solutions, based in the Cloud, that will offer business solutions that they no longer need to buy and physically own but delivers all their Cloud Technology needs.  While this publication has criticized BT in the past for some mixed messaging around this especially on their recent hosted telecommunications announcement (See BT hype “Cloud of Clouds”) this recent release is much clearer.

BT Cloud of Clouds for security (Source BT)
BT Cloud of Clouds for security
John Marcus, Principle Concultant at Current Analysis (Source Linkedin)
John Marcus, Principle Concultant at Current Analysis

There are analysts who back the view that the implementation of this BT vision is rated “very strong”.  This was the view of . John Marcus, Principal Analyst, Business Network and IT Services at Current Analysis who commented “BT Global Services’ managed security services are very strong relative to the solutions offered by its rivals, thanks to the breadth and depth of its portfolio. For the growing number of enterprises seeking a broader, integrated solution rather than treating security as an isolated silo, BT can offer a one-stop-shop security experience. BT has been extremely active in making enhancements and additions to its security portfolio, with five new service launches in 2015 already, and is in the process of migrating core security offerings from premises-based to cloud-based and BT-hosted solutions. There is much to be gained by the transition, driven by next-generation appliances and applications.

Assure DDOS mitigation is designed as a modular, subscription cloud-based service, so different levels of protection can be added as required with no capital expenditure. The service was launched in the UK in 2014 and is now available globally.

(Next : Sevenoaks Security Showcase)

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