The findings provide key insights into the group’s unique needs for deploying DDoS protection across their networks and the valuable business benefit to position themselves as leading the charge against DDoS attacks, both in protecting their own infrastructure and offering more comprehensive security solutions to their customers, as a paid-for managed service. In terms of the importance of providing DDoS mitigation in relation to other types of security services for customers, 93 percent see it as a high priority, with 37 percent ranking it as more important and 56 percent saying it was just as important. This is up 10 points compared with the 83 percent total from last year. A full 82 percent see a clear business opportunity in providing a DDoS Protection as-a-Service (DDPaaS) to their customers.
“Given that DDoS attacks are growing in frequency and sophistication, it’s not at all surprising that providers are prioritizing and enhancing DDoS mitigation service offerings, and understand the revenue opportunity that such a service brings to the table. It’s much more cost effective—and less complicated—for a business to secure DDoS protection from their trusted provider,” stated Stephanie Weagle, Corero Vice President of Marketing.
Even as service providers are clearly concerned about DDoS and its effects, the top issue in providing DDPaaS was proving the value of the service to customers, as cited by 39 percent survey respondents. Other concerns in deploying DDPaaS include a requirement for per-customer visibility and protection capabilities from a single management console (held by 23 percent); and cost (21 percent).
In ranking what providers are looking for in an ideal DDoS solution, unsurprisingly, the results display a wide range of requirements.
- The ability maintain bandwidth/throughput in the face of a DDoS attack was ranked most important at 42 percent, similarly to last year.
- Unsurprisingly, the ability to handle high-volume, indiscriminate attacks ranked second highest in importance to 29 percent of respondents.
- The ability to mitigate attacks in seconds’ vs minutes or more, and ability to handle attacks that are aimed at disrupting specific applications, 25 percent each.
- The ability to reduce overall CAPEX/OPEX was key for about a fifth of service providers, 22 percent
The capability to integrate DDoS attack mitigation with third-party DDoS detection tools, the ability to provide reporting and visibility into attack types and mitigation that was executed, as well as a solution with low false blocking rates all scored relatively equally as requirements in deploying a DDoS mitigation solution.
With the end-user demand for premium DDoS-as-a-service options, those service providers that position themselves with automated, sophisticated DDoS protection will find themselves winning in both customer loyalty and competitive advantage.