F5 just announced they are acquiring Defense.net. Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS is an attacks that attempts to make a server or a network resource unavailable to users (more on launching and preventing DoS and DDoS can be found HERE). Many sources such as the latest Verizon Breach Report as well as some of my customers are seeing a rise in this form of attack. Typically, DDoS / DoS attacks are volumetric meaning they are caused by a ton of systems targeting a specific server, which is hard to defend against. For this reason, the DDoS /DoS vendors are seeing an increase in Interest such as Arbor, Radware and now Defense.net.
F5 has DDoS solutions however what they have lacked until now is a cloud based DDoS mitigation service. This is needed for a complete DDoS story as F5’s firewall and traffic management is not enough when it comes to large external attacks to a specific resource. It should be interesting to see how a product vendor integrates defense.net’s primary and secondary cloud DDoS research and defense offerings. Maybe this will turn into a additional license when purchasing a F5 security solution? Time will tell.
From the F5 website:
F5 Networks (NASDAQ: FFIV) announced today that it has acquired Defense.Net, Inc. a privately-held provider of cloud-based security services for protecting data centers and Internet applications from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The advanced technologies and operational experience shared between the two companies will expand F5’s portfolio of security solutions for defense against Internet-based DDoS attacks on networks, data centers, and applications. Defense.Net’s high-capacity cloud service is complementary to F5’s existing on-premise DDoS Protection capabilities. The combination provides customers with the most comprehensive hybrid DDoS solution, engineered to absorb the full threat spectrum of DDoS attacks.
Designed by DDoS industry pioneers, Defense.Net’s service is supported by an advanced, high-throughput infrastructure to defend organizations against the new generation of massive and sophisticated DDoS attacks. The Defense.Net network supports multiple protocols and provides ground-breaking features for remediation and control to safeguard customers from unforeseen threat vectors, while maintaining application performance.
The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The acquisition is not expected to have a material impact on F5’s operating results.
