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According to NETSCOUT Arbor\u2019s 13th<\/sup> Annual Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report (<\/span>WISR<\/strong><\/span><\/a>), attacks targeting encrypted web services have becoming increasingly common. <\/span><\/p>\n According to Bryan Hamman, territory manager for sub-Saharan Africa at NETSCOUT Arbor, which specialises in advanced Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection solutions, encryption is a basic necessity in an organisation\u2019s cyber security defence arsenal. \u201cEncryption is the way in which plaintext or any other type of data is converted from a readable form to an encoded version that can only be decoded by another entity if they have access to a decryption key. Encryption is a tremendously important method for providing data security, especially for end-to-end protection of data transmitted across networks.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFor example, encryption allows banks to offer online banking and funds transfers, and protects the public\u2019s online interactions when they use their credit or debit cards, or interact with any service provider for an online transaction that involves the exchange of information. Breaking web service encryption of such online data stores, which house confidential personal and financial data, is therefore a serious goal for cyber attackers, and, according to the most recent NETSCOUT Arbor WISR, attacks targeting encrypted web services in recent years are becoming more common. Using a DDoS attack is one method of carrying out such an assault on data.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A DDoS attack is an attempt to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources. In recent years, DDoS attacks have become a major cyber-security issue for CIOs and CSOs, as each year these attacks grow in number, becoming bigger and more damaging. Just a few months ago, NETSCOUT Arbor defences were able to foil \u2013 on behalf of its clients \u2013 two of the biggest DDoS attacks in history. <\/span><\/p>\n Hamman notes, \u201cOn 28 February, a 1.3Tbps DDoS attack was confirmed against developer platform GitHub, which was unavailable from 17:21 to 17:26 UTC, and intermittently unavailable from 17:26 to 17:30 UTC, due to the attack. However, no data was lost. This was then the most powerful DDoS attack recorded to date. Hot on its heels though, just days later in early March, an even larger attack of 1.7Tbps \u2013 a reflection\/amplification attack \u2013 was targeted at a customer of an American-based service provider and recorded by the NETSCOUT Arbor ATLAS global traffic and DDoS threat data system. Again, the attack was unsuccessful.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n