DDoS made easy: 5 steps to selecting a provider

Make no mistake about it - credit unions have been put on alert by NCUA to prepare for DDoS attacks. The problem is no one is telling them how! When new threats hit the news, a wave of new “flavor of the day” vendors leap into the market. All it takes is a good marketing campaign and a splashy logo and “experts” are born (remember Pandemic and Y2K?). Your members rely on you to make vendor selections that protect their sensitive data. So what should you look for in a DDoS vendor?

We’ve put together a checklist of important points to help you navigate the DDoS vendor selection process.

1) Understand that it is not just about DDoS – DDoS is just one of many cybercrime threats making its way into the nightmares of credit union CIO’s. As they race to implement another acronym driven solution (IDS, IPS to name a few) to protect their perimeters, an army of hackers plot their next move essentially nullifying your efforts before you can complete the installs! Key points to remember:

• Remember credit union budget cycles are notoriously SLOW
• Remember hackers are notoriously fast at exploiting vulnerabilities and/or creating new threats
• Plan for “When”, Not “If”

2) Ask your peers – The credit union industry is known for its grassroots movement philosophy and open collaboration. Reach out to your peers – what are they doing? Have they experienced an attack? If so, how long? What’d they do? Did they have to enlist the aid of an external partner for mitigation? (See where I’m going with this?) Referrals beat RFPs ANY DAY

3) What type of threats are they protecting against? It might appear to be a simple four-letter word but DDoS attacks range wildly in complexity and scope. Our friends at RadWare developed this table to help CIO’s methodically and deliberately narrow down their pool of possible vendors and to make selection easier. Don’t go to the bargaining table without this!

4) Determine their mitigation strategies – Blackholing should NOT be your only DDoS mitigation strategy unless you are comfortable being completely offline for days/weeks on end. Depending on your credit union RTO/RPO, you will want the DDoS attempt identified and remediated fast enough to meet your goals AND to continue providing critical services to your members during that time. Questions to ask the vendor:

• What are the various configuration options available and how do I determine which one fits our strategic objectives?
• How quickly does your solution work to detect and mitigate?
• How do you detect legitimate users vs attackers?
• Is the solution cloud-based or require an appliance onsite (either could be a great option for you but you need to understand the difference between each)?

5) Verify the vendor’s expertise – As I shared earlier, new threats (or new NCUA requirements) often bring a wave of new vendor choices. You will want to verify your potential DDoS partner has:

• Technical Expertise – This goes without saying. Look under the engine.
• Resources – DDoS attacks can go on for days. A 1-2 person shop isn’t going to be effective in this situation. Look for a vendor with a resource pool to sustain 24/7 remediation work.
• Credit Union Knowledge – Partnering with a vendor who understands your industry yields far superior engagements because you can speak the same language. Your vendor should be able to understand your business processes and help you to identify areas of weakness in your impact analysis and then design a solution based upon your risk assessments.

Considering that while you read this post, 4,263,291 unauthorized packets knocked on your firewall door, I’d say you need to get moving (yes, I made that number up – but who knows, it could be higher).

For more information on DDoS/Cyber-Threats, download a courtesy copy of our eBook.