DDoS Report Highlights Need for Education

Commenting on the just-released 7th annual Infrastructure Security Report from Arbor Networks, the organisers of the Infosecurity Europe show say that the need for education on the latest security defences has never been stronger.

According to David Rowe, CISSP, member of the Infosecurity Europe Advisory Council and Head of Business Services for Reed Exhibitions the organisers of the show held 24-26 April in London, the most significant conclusion of the report – namely that changing motivations behind distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks will require many organisations to re-assess their risk assessment models – is going to worry a great many security professionals.

“We all know that the incidence of hacktivism and other forms of online vandalism are soaring – and hardly a week goes by without one or more organisation’s Web portals being downed by this attack vector – but this report lays out exactly what is happening in bare statistics,” he said.

“With more than 46 per cent of respondents reporting between 1 and 10 DDoS attacks each month and a further 44 per cent reporting 10 or more attacks – there is clearly a need for a reworking of security strategies in many organisations, as well as a better understanding of the risks and solutions available to counter those risks,” he added.

David Rowe went on to say that education is now central to any form of planning and remediation strategies for the complex DDoS attack vectors identified in the report.

This is why, he explained, this year’s Infosecurity Europe show – which will held over three days starting on April 24th at London’s Earl’s Court exhibition centre – continues to invest heavily in its free education programme.

And with the Arbor report identifying increasing levels of sophistication and complexity of layer-7 DDoS attacks, as well as multi-vector DDoS attacks becoming more commonplace, this year’s IT security education programme is certain to be a success.

Rowe says that one keynote that is certain to be standing room only will be the `AET & APT: is it really the next generation of attack’, which will see a panel of experts – including Jon Donaldson, Head Of Security Operations & Compliance with Visa Europe – discussing the problem of advanced security attacks.

“Another seminar that is likely to attract a lot of interest is a governance discussion entitled `The rising role of the CISO’ in which the panel will look at what makes a modern CISO/CSO and the communication skills that this vital business strategy role requires,” he said.

“Today’s IT security professionals need all the help they can get when it comes to better understanding the latest threats – such as DDoS attacks that threaten the integrity of their IT platform. And with two-thirds of respondents to this report having deployed IPv6 technology on their networks – and the first IPv6 attacks already being observed in the wild – the Infosecurity Europe 2012 education programme will be sure to assist attendees as they develop their strategies to counter the latest threats that hacktivists now pose,” he added.

To register free – or to find more information on Infosecurity Europe 2012 – please go to www.infosec.co.uk– we look forward to you joining us for what promises to be an informative and educational show!