Radware launches DDoS protection for online gaming

Radware has announced the launch of multi-dimensional DDoS detection and protection to meet the demands of the online gaming industry.
The cyber security and application delivery solutions provider has developed a set of new algorithms to protect sophisticated attacks against the sector.

"Online games are a massive, multi-billion-dollar industry, but they frequently fall victim to powerful and targeted DDoS attacks," says aid Gabi Malka, chief operating officer at Radware.

"Any disruption in service could drive users away to competing titles, damage brand reputation, and cost businesses substantial income for every second of downtime,

"Threats like denial of service attacks cannot be ignored. Online game companies need to cover any gaps in security that might be left open from the service providers they work with to deliver these online experiences for their players.

Online games and specifically the massive multi-player (MMO) games, experience multiple attacks coming from hackers and platform competition that try to block players' access to the gaming platforms, from cheating players that can attack other players slowing their connection, while gaining a competitive advantage, and attacks that can take the entire game offline.

According to Radware, with its DDoS protection solutions, online game companies and platforms have access to a multi-dimensional, enhanced DDoS protection solution to protect against sophisticated attacks. This includes enhanced, behavioural-based protection for UDP (User Datagram Protocol) based attacks. Online games typically rely on UDP to send and receive data as it does not require time-consuming and frequent 'handshakes' used in other protocols, like TCP.

Yet, many of the other solutions available to protect against attacks focus on rate-based volumetric protection and, especially within the public cloud, lack in their protection against UDP attacks.

In addition, DDoS attacks on the application level or non-volumetric attacks that do not directly impact the public cloud network often can go undetected. These types of rate-based protections also result in a high rate of false-positives, which can cause suspensions of service to loyal, innocent users.

Anna Convery-Pelletier, chief marketing officer for Radware, says Radware's advanced behavioural technology blocks DDoS attacks, including non-volumetric attacks, burst attacks and unknown zero-day attacks, with the greatest accuracy ensuring a low false positive rate and the best user experience.

"These online game companies rely on public cloud providers to deliver online experiences at massive scale, but many of these companies don't truly understand the level of protection they can expect from their cloud partners," she says.

"We're working with these cloud providers and video game companies to protect the entire gaming ecosystem so that every player can enjoy their online gaming experience, regardless of whether they reside in the public cloud or hybrid environments."