Hibernia adds DDoS mitigation capabilities to its global IP transit service line

Hibernia Networks, which is in the process of being acquired by GTT, has introduced Border Gateway Protocol Flow Specification (BGP Flowspec) for its IP Transit services to mitigate distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Set to be immediately available for all Hibernia Networks IP Transit customers, this new security capability can reduce time between identifying an attack and implementing a remediation scheme.

BGP Flowspec’s ability to take a surgical approach to traffic filtering, through the Network Layer Reachability Information (NLRI) functionality, enables the identification of specific traffic flows that should be discarded as a component of a DDoS attack.

RELATED: GTT acquires Hibernia Networks for $590M, adds global fiber, low-latency routes to portfolio

One of the other advantages of the enhanced DDoS mitigation solution is that it does not require the complete shutdown of traffic that typically occurs when a “black-hole” response is applied.

By isolating specific IP addresses and remediating them in a more targeted manner, this technique enables both network operators and enterprise customers to continue serving their end users while they fend off malicious traffic.  

Hibernia’s timing for this new service could not be better.

Multi-vector DDoS attacks rose to 56% of the total DDoS attacks in 2016, up from 42 percent in 2015, according to Arbor Networks’ 2016 Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report.

This service will also come in handy for GTT when it completes the acquisition of Hibernia by the end of the first quarter of 2017, giving it an enhanced set of capabilities for its managed security services suite.