HOLLYWOOD, Fla., Sept. 12, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Prolexic, the global leader in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection services, announced today that it recently mitigated a high volume Layer 4 DDoS attack on EntroPay (www.entropay.com), a virtual credit card web site owned and operated by Ixaris Systems.
At www.entropay.com, anyone can open and fund an account to obtain a virtual prepaid Visa card that is accepted by millions of merchants worldwide. As the first and now most successful virtual prepaid card introduced in Europe, EntroPay provides consumers with a safe, flexible and instantaneous way of making and receiving online payments.
As awareness and popularity of the web site increased, it became a target for DDoS denial of service attacks. Although no user data was ever compromised, the DDoS attacks brought down the EntroPay site, sometimes for a considerable length of time. In response, the company increased network protection with a hardware mitigation appliance from its Internet Service Provider. However, this solution failed when EntroPay was hit with an attack that had traffic volume exceeding the appliance's limit of 100Mbps.
EntroPay then decided to engage Prolexic for DDoS detection and DDoS protection. Ixaris now uses Prolexic's PLXrouted service to provide DDoS protection for the EntroPay wen site. With this service, DDoS attacks are detected by monitoring on-premise equipment. In the event of an attack, the traffic-routing service is activated using Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to on-ramp network traffic to Prolexic's 500 Gbps cloud-based denial of service DDoS mitigation infrastructure.
Recently, the EntroPay web site has been hit by a wide range of attack types – SYN Flood, ICMP Flood, UDP Flood – in various durations including a Layer 4 DDoS attack peaking at 700 Mbps. EntroPay has also experienced attacks characterized by high CPU usage on its routers and several UDP drops on the router's Access Control Lists (ACLs). In each case, Prolexic technicians were able to defeat the attacks in minutes. With the assistance of PLXsert (Prolexic's Security Engineering and Response Team), post-attack forensic information helped Ixaris identify where the attacks originated.
"The first half of 2012 has seen an increase in the number and size of DDoS attacks on financial industry web sites," said Stuart Scholly, president of Prolexic. "The recent attacks against EntroPay.com is no surprise in light of the escalating activity against the financial industry."
"As a Level 1 PCI compliant financial services provider, the security of our service is of the utmost importance so any attack is something we take very seriously," said Tim Murfet, chief information officer at Ixaris Systems. "Once our traffic is routed through Prolexic's network, we're immediately back in business."
With DDoS attacks against financial web sites on the rise, Murfet recommends that DDoS protection be treated like a disaster recovery plan that should be regularly tested to ensure that everyone in IT knows how to respond during an attack.
"It's important to have good communication with your DDoS mitigation provider even in non-attack situations and to test the service regularly so you'll know it will work when you need it," Murfet advised. "For a financial services company like ours that requires 100 percent uptime, we need the peace of mind that Prolexic mitigation services provide."
To learn more, the full EntroPay.com case study can be downloaded from www.prolexic.com/entropay. More information on Prolexic's mitigation activities and the attacks directed at its global client base, including EntroPay, is published in Prolexic's Q2 2012 Quarterly Global DDoS Mitigation Report. A complimentary copy can be downloaded from www.prolexic.com/attackreports.
About EntroPay
EntroPay is one of the most cost-effective, easy and rapid means for businesses and consumers to remit funds around the world through less-restricted access to global payment networks (Visa, Mastercard, SWIFT). It is a highly recognized payment platform among online companies and has a strong track record of converting customers when offered as a payment alternative. EntroPay has operated since 2003 by Ixaris Systems, which is authorized by the UK Financial Services Authority under the Payment Service Regulations 2009 for the provision of payment services, with FSA registration number 540990. For more information, visit www.entropay.com.
About Prolexic
Prolexic Technologies is the world's largest, most trusted Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection and mitigation service provider. Able to absorb the largest and most complex DDoS attacks ever launched, Prolexic protects and restores within minutes mission-critical Internet-facing infrastructures for global enterprises and government agencies. Ten of the world's largest banks and the leading companies in e-Commerce, SaaS, payment processing, travel, hospitality, gaming and other industries at risk for DDoS attacks rely on Prolexic for DDoS protection. Founded in 2003 as the world's first in-the-cloud DDoS mitigation platform, Prolexic is headquartered in Hollywood, Florida, and has DDoS scrubbing centers located in the Americas, Europe and Asia. To learn more about how Prolexic can stop DDoS attacks and protect your business, please visit prolexic.com, and follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and @Prolexic on Twitter.
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