(Source: Defcon 22-Las Vegas)

(Source: Defcon 22-Las Vegas)

(Source: Defcon 22-Las Vegas)

(Source: Defcon 22-Las Vegas)

(Source: Defcon 22-Las Vegas)

Today, DDoS attacks are one of the most prevalent cyberassaults in our constantly changing threat landscape. Bank of America, MasterCard, PayPal, Sony, Visa, and many more of the world’s largest companies have all been victims of DDoS attacks. These unpredictable attacks continue to increase and grow in sophistication by the day. The availability of an organization’s critical systems depends on its ability to adapt and scale across its online infrastructure and protect it from these types of incidents.

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Why Read This Report

On December 2, 2013, Akamai Technologies announced its acquisition of Prolexic Technologies, a provider (with more than 400 customers) of cloud-based DDoS protection and mitigation services for data centers and enterprise IP applications, for $370 million. Akamai expects to retain Prolexic’s current management team and combine R&D efforts to accelerate development of new offerings. In this Quick Take, we provide our analysis of what the acquisition means for Akamai, security and risk (S&R) professionals considering DDoS protection and mitigation solutions, competitors, and the trajectory of the market itself.

( Read more: Security Technology Implementation Report- Annual CISO Survey )

This is a Sponsored Report by Akamai

The next-generation firewall is well defined by Gartner as something new and enterprise-focused “incorporating full-stack inspection to support intrusion prevention, application-level inspection and granular policy control” .

Most network security vendors are now offering application visibility and control by either adding application signatures to their IPS engine, or offering you an add-on license for an application control module. In either case, these options are additive to a port-based firewall, and do little to help you focus on the fundamental tasks your firewall is designed to execute.

( Read more:  Top 5 Application Security Technology Trends )

>>Click here for Complete Checklist & Detailed Report

Next-Generation Firewall Requirements:

• Identify applications regardless of port, protocol,evasive tactic or decryption.
• Identify users regardless of device or IP address.
• Decrypt outbound SSL.
• Protect in real-time against known and unknown threats embedded across applications.
• Deliver predictable, multi-gigabit inline deployment.

Firewall selection criteria will typically fall into three areas: security functions, operations, and performance.The security functional elements correspond to the efficacy of the security controls, and the ability for your team to manage the risk associated with the applications traversing your network. From an operations perspective, the big question is, “where does application policy live, and how hard or complex is it for your team to manage?”

The performance difference is simple: can the firewall do what it’s supposed to do at the required throughput your business needs? 

( Read more:   How Should a CISO choose the right Anti-Malware Technology? )

>>Click here for Complete Checklist & Detailed Report

The Top 10 Things Your Next Firewall Must Do are:

• Identify and control applications on any port
• Identify and control circumventors
• Decrypt outbound SSL and control SSH
• Provide application function control
• Systematically manage unknown traffic
• Scan for viruses and malware in all applications, on all ports
• Enable the same application visibility and control for all users and devices
• Make network security simpler, not more complex, with the addition of application control
• Deliver the same throughput and performance with application control fully activated
• Support the exact same firewall functions in both a hardware and virtualized form factor

>>Click here for Complete Checklist & Detailed Report

What does 'NextGen Firewall' mean to you? Are there more features that should be added to the checklist? Share your views in the comments below

We know all too well how major security incidents can affect a company’s data, networks and corporate brand. We also know that sophisticated attacks, designed to gain continuous access to critical information or to cause damage in critical infrastructure, are becoming more severe, more frequent and more costly.

>>Apply Now for IBM Complimentary Security Health Scan

Here are sample Security Health Scan findings for several types of organizations, showing the average number of
vulnerabilities found after just one of three consecutive weekly scans. It’s not a surprise to see that even the most
secure companies can find they have significant exposures, sometimes on multiple fronts. In today’s dynamic business
environment, where boundaries no longer exist, you’re more than likely to find at least some vulnerabilities and exposures.