VeriSign Rolls Out DDoS Monitoring Service

PRESS RELEASE

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, September 10, 2009 " VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world, today announced the launch of a new monitoring-only service for Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks. The monitoring service is an extension of the VeriSign Internet Defense Network, a cloud-based DDoS mitigation service introduced earlier this year.

VeriSign Internet Defense Network is a network and hardware agnostic DDoS monitoring, mitigation and attribution service that detects and filters malicious traffic away from enterprise Web sites, helping maintain critical online applications and services. Leveraging VeriSign's industry-leading expertise in building and protecting large-scale infrastructures, VeriSign Internet Defense Network uses a proprietary filtering technology to stop a DDoS attack in the cloud before it reaches a customer's network. In addition, the service requires no hardware installation, making it more cost effective than premise-based solutions.

DDoS attacks have become a serious threat to enterprise online business continuity. What has traditionally been managed as an incremental part of bandwidth provisioning and cost has now evolved into a threat of growing scale and sophistication that warrants a dedicated review and mitigation approach. According to a study by Forrester Research, 74 percent of companies have experienced a DDoS attack of some kind. In addition, the study found that companies today do not have adequate protection against DDoS attacks, and many overprovision their bandwidth " even by as much as 75 percent " to account for unexpected traffic, including DDoS. This is a costly and ineffective method for DDoS protection, especially for those organizations that are likely targets for attacks.

"A number of recent high-profile attacks against the United States and South Korean governments and popular social networking sites have moved DDoS up the list of concerns for many CISOs," said Ken Silva, CTO of VeriSign. "Customers who attempt to overprovision their bandwidth are lulling themselves into a false sense of security against a real DDoS attack. Keeping bad traffic from reaching your doorstep requires a new cloud-based service such as VeriSign Internet Defense Network. The addition of a DDoS monitoring-only service will help many companies that depend on online commerce and communication by providing a means of watching for changes in Web site traffic that may indicate an impending attack."

Enterprises can use the DDoS monitoring-only service to enable identification of unusual site traffic patterns that may represent an oncoming attack " with easy cross-over to mitigation service if needed. Early identification of a potential DDoS attack is a critical aspect of successfully mitigating its impact. If an attack occurs, clients are notified immediately by a VeriSign Internet Defense Network technician who will seek input from the clients to determine if there is a legitimate cause for the increased traffic based on customer activity. VeriSign then provides clients with a recommended course of action. In the case of a verified DDoS attack, the VeriSign Internet Defense Network can filter the client's Web traffic, blocking virtually all malicious traffic while enabling legitimate traffic to reach its intended destination. VeriSign sites are massively scaled to ensure businesses have protection against even the largest DDoS attacks. Customers can see all this happen through a real-time portal.

"With more businesses being run online these days, criminal motivation and sophistication are at an all time high. In the cloud DDoS defense will protect businesses across all networks, regardless of their architecture," said Richard Stiennon, industry security expert and Chief Research Analyst at IT-Harvest. "Traditional solutions aren't going to be enough as attacks become more and more sophisticated; blocking and tackling in the cloud provides the best mode of defense against Distributed Denial of Service attacks."

"VeriSign Internet Defense Network has significant advantages over ISP/connectivity-based services because they can often result in significant bandwidth overage charges, or in the case of a large enterprise with multiple vendors, vary in level of service," added Silva.

Ken Silva will deliver a presentation today on key learnings from the recent wave of DDoS attacks at the Forrester's Security Forum 2009 in San Diego. For more information on the forum, please visit http://www.forrester.com/events/eventdetail?eventID=2380

To learn more about the VeriSign Internet Defense Network, please visit www.verisign.com/vidn.

About VeriSign VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) is the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world. Billions of times each day, VeriSign helps companies and consumers all over the world engage in communications and commerce with confidence. Additional news and information about the company is available at www.verisign.com.