To build and maintain resilience against cyber threats, enterprises need to build stronger defences to protect their assets and applications

With the introduction of modern technologies and attack vectors, enterprises are constantly vulnerable and must address the most common cyberthreats including identity thefts, personal data breach, phishing attacks, DDoS, zero-day application exploits and ransomware attacks. In an exclusive interview with CXOToday, Arjun Kallawar, Head of Solutions Engineering – India & South, Edgio Asia shares his insights on the increasing importance for cybersecurity programs and how Edgio is helping organisations create stronger cyber defences.

• An overview of the Edgio business in India?

Edgio helps businesses meet growing consumer demand for fast, secure, and reliable digital experiences. We offer cloud-based application security and Web CDN services across our private, globally scaled network reaching 38 countries. Through comprehensive security protection, we enable clients to respond to Zero Day security attacks, account takeovers and credential abuse.

Our next generation Web CDN features edge-enabled predictive, monitoring and release capabilities that improve site speed and performance. Edgio delivers five percent of all internet traffic worldwide and serves Fortune 100 and other trusted brands like Rakuten VIKI, Docomo, Kate Spade and The Sharper Image.

• What are the various cyberthreats that enterprises are facing?

With the introduction of modern technologies and attack vectors, enterprises are constantly vulnerable and must address the most common cyberthreats including identity thefts, personal data breach, phishing attacks, DDoS, zero-day application exploits and ransomware attacks.

Through web applications, businesses may also get exposed to remote code execution (RCE), SQL injection (SQLi), cross-site scripting (XSS), scraping plus these OWASP Top 10 security risks.

Edgio provides security at scale. Our security features run on a globally distributed private network with over 250+ Tbps — far beyond the largest known 3.5 Tbps DDoS attack in history — which protects business from vulnerabilities while mitigating potential attacks.

• How can enterprises build up their cyber resilience in the face of rapidly changing threats?

To build and maintain resilience, it is important for enterprises to keep an eye on potential threats, build stronger defences against them, and respond to them in an effective, creative and collaborative manner.

Threat planning and threat mapping are essential efforts which help organizational leaders define primary and secondary impacts. From these activities, companies are able to respond more rapidly, better identify areas prone to threats and, ultimately, protect their applications and assets.

• What can businesses leaders do to maintain their pace of digital transformation without compromising on their cybersecurity programs?

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, cybersecurity cannot no longer be treated as a siloed, separate function and must get integrated into digital processes.

It is important to develop in-house expertise or collaborate with partners that not only protect your web presence but also streamline application deployment and cloud overhead.

For application development, we suggested taking a “DevSecOps” approach to ensure security is involved in every step – and to reduce risks from unsecured applications.

• Can you cite an example where Edgio has helped avert a major cyberthreat and how?

Edgio prevented one of the largest recorded DDoS attacks measuring ~176 million packets per second (Mpps) which targeted a multinational e-commerce client based in Asia. Despite the massive size of this attack, it was a non-event for our client which saw no impact on its origin as Edgio’s network absorbed 100% of the attack traffic.

While the attack lasted about 30 minutes and targeted our PoP locations in the EU, the Edgio network quickly spread the load around to a wider geographic region. Our proprietary software-based DDoS detection and mitigation system fully protected our client.

Our system worked 24x7x365 to analyse samples of all packets traverse our network, score them for threats and automatically take action when necessary. Through visibility and alerts, Edgio’s network operations centre (NOC) performed additional analysis and took mitigative actions quickly.