IP DDoS protection for SMB offers the same services used by large enterprises, but it can be deployed to protect even a single IP address. Artwork: DR
Microsoft’s DDoS IP Protection solution is designed to offer enterprise-class protection against distributed denial-of-service attacks to SMBs at a price that meets their needs.
Azure DDoS IP Protection for SMBs was announced in mid-October at Microsoft’s Ignite conference, and is now publicly available. According to Microsoft, the new solution offers its target users protection against enterprise-class DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks at an attractive price. Microsoft’s Azure DDoS Protection family now has two programs: DDoS IP Protection for SMBs and DDoS Network Protection for Enterprises.
Azure DDoS protection for SMBs
IP DDoS protection for SMB offers the same services used by large enterprises, but it can be deployed to protect even a single IP address. The new product enables enterprises to defend against L3/L4 DDoS attacks with continuous monitoring and adaptive tuning, ensuring that the application is always protected, but also that all customers using public IPs on Azure are protected. L3/L4 attacks are DDoS attacks with capacity overflow. A Layer 3 or L3 attack targets the network infrastructure, and a Layer 4 or L4 attack targets the enterprise transport layer infrastructure. IP DDoS protection performs traffic monitoring, automatic attack mitigation, integrates with firewall manager, provides mitigation reports and flow logs, includes Azure Sentinel data connector and Azure project folders.
Compared to the enterprise version, the SMB version does not include cost protection, discount web application firewall, and support to quickly respond to DDoS attacks. SMBs can enable IP protection via the Azure preview portal or via PowerShell. Azure DDoS Protection integrates with other Azure services for real-time alerts, actions and insights. The product is offered at a fixed price of $199 per month for each protected public IP resource without additional variable costs. Billing for IP protection will take effect on February 1, 2023.
Azure Firewall Basic is also targeted at SMBs
At Ignite, Microsoft also announced Azure Firewall Basic, an enterprise-class network firewall solution targeted at SMBs.This cloud firewall provides built-in availability and cloud scalability to protect resources in the company’s virtual network, Microsoft said. In particular, the product provides network firewall functionality, such as L3-L7 filtering of East-West and North-South traffic, with built-in threat intelligence to block malicious traffic.Azure Firewall integrates with other Azure services such as Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Defender for Cloud to provide better visibility into the environment, identify threats and respond quickly, said the supplier. The introduction of these two products for SMBs seems to indicate that Azure has a strong interest in this sector.With these two products, SMBs can get enterprise-grade network firewall and DDoS protection at a reasonable price. By deploying Azure Firewall Basic and enabling DDoS IP protection on the firewall’s public IP, customers can benefit from both servicesMicrosoft said in a blog post.
Increase in DDoS attacks
DDoS attacks are one of the biggest security concerns for cloud applications and are increasing in complexity and frequency, making cybersecurity challenges increasingly difficult to overcome. Their recent resurgence concerns all businesses, including SMEs. According to the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, DDoS attacks were the second most used cyber attack modality last year. On the old continent, an attack of unprecedented scale targeted an Akamai customer using its Prolexic platform. The attack, conducted for 14 hours on July 21, 2022, peaked at 853.7 Gbps and 659.6Mpps (mgpackets per second). Kaspersky research showed that compared to the third quarter of 2021, DDoS attacks increased by almost 50% (47.87%) during the third quarter of 2022. The cyber security company’s DDoS Intelligence system recorded 57,116 DDoS attacks during this period.