Prolexic Predicts Increasing DDoS Attack Durations Against Companies During Holiday Season

HOLLYWOOD, FL — (October 31, 2011) — Prolexic Technologies, the global leader in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection services, today announced it expects attack durations to increase during the upcoming holiday season, especially against companies with an e-Commerce presence.

“Last year we saw attack durations spike in the last three weeks of the year,” said Neal Quinn, Vice President of Operations at Prolexic. “Our data shows that the two highest average attack duration figures for the entire year – six days and almost eight days – were recorded during the last two weeks of the year. Typically, we see average attack duration of one to three days so with longer attacks you can expect more downtime and more financial impact.”

e-Commerce companies are particularly susceptible to DDoS attacks during the fourth quarter holiday season as attackers like to cause the most chaos and make the largest possible financial impact. For many businesses, a significant percentage of yearly revenues are made in the fourth quarter and a serious DDoS attack can be financially devastating.

To raise awareness of the increased potential for attack, Prolexic has launched a marketing campaign that suggests retailers put DDoS protection in place or re-evaluate the protection they already have, as it may not be sufficient to stop increasingly large and complex attacks.

“Many e-Commerce firms obtain DDoS protection from their ISP, hosting provider or content delivery network,” said Michael E. Donner, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer at Prolexic. “What many companies fail to realize is that against the more complex Layer 7 and SSL attacks that target web applications, these mitigation services consistently fail to work. The campaign raises awareness of this little known fact.”

The campaign is supported by a number of marketing assets that are available for download. In addition to two new white papers, “’Tis the Season – for DDoS Attacks” and “The Executive’s Guide to DDoS”, a case study on SpaFinder.com, a global online resource for spa and wellness services and products, are also available. Despite having DDoS mitigation services in place from its hosting company, the SpaFinder.com site was taken offline by a Layer 7 DDoS attack this summer before Prolexic stepped in to mitigate the attack. Assets can be downloaded from www.prolexic.com/ecommerce

The campaign features print advertisements, banner ads on web pages and in newsletters, as well as email promotions. To reach e-Commerce providers, Prolexic has selected four of the leading e-Commerce print and online publications including Electronic Retailer, Internet Retailer, RIS News and Stores Media.

Prolexic’s fourth quarter campaign is part of a major rebranding effort currently underway that also includes a redesigned corporate web site at www.prolexic.com and a new corporate brochure.

“Prolexic represents the gold standard for DDoS monitoring and mitigation,” said Donner. “It’s important for businesses to realize that not all providers are the same so we hope to highlight this differentiation through our on-going branding and marketing efforts.”

About Prolexic

Prolexic is the world’s largest, most trusted Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation provider. Able to absorb the largest and most complex attacks ever launched, Prolexic restores mission critical Internet facing infrastructures for global enterprises and government agencies within minutes. Six of the world’s ten largest banks and the leading companies in e-Commerce, payment processing, travel/hospitality, gaming and other at risk industries rely on Prolexic to protect their businesses. Founded in 2003 as the world’s first “in the cloud” DDoS mitigation platform, Prolexic is headquartered in Hollywood, Florida and has scrubbing centers located in the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.prolexic.com.