Interoute claimed that through its reinforced private cloud, spectators and fans were able to access 31,000 web pages per second at peak times to view the tournament.
DDoS attacks are proving an ever-growing problem in the realms of cyber security, with many operators making investments to counter the threats. Interoute said it used a three-tier security approach, and delivered high levels of continuity for the football body’s main website and its logistical management system.
Gareth Williams, CEO at Interoute, outlined the importance for businesses to be alive to the threat of unwanted online attention, and should invest in countering the problem.
“The Interoute private cloud hosting infrastructure served up over four billion pages to fans all over the world, with visitors viewing numbers peaking at over 31,000 pages per second. It’s not just major events that attract unwanted attention online, these days every business with a presence is open to attack,” he said.
“Interoute supports businesses across Europe to prevent DDoS and cyber attacks, with intrusion prevention services, email content filtering and much more.”
Through the company’s private cloud environment, Interoute has been able to protect its network level security, and data accessed by UEFA’s systems was screened.
Any malicious traffic mitigated by a service was then checked by a managed firewall service. Its network intrusion prevention service provides a third tier of protection by screening data, which evalues the data packets by type, signature and behaviour, and then permits or blocks the data traffic accordingly.
Daniel Marion, head of ICT at UEFA, said: “98% of UEFA’s ICT services are hosted in Interoute’s private cloud computing platform because security and responsiveness are key to delivering the best experience. Interoute and UEFA worked around the clock to ensure any attacks were handled quickly and we experienced no disruption to the UEFA EURO 2012 service.”
