Jan 22, 2021
DENVER, Jan. 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Black Lotus Labs, the threat intelligence arm of Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN), today released a blog that details the team’s research into the recent increase in Ransom Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.
Since the second half of 2020, Black Lotus Labs has observed a disturbing number of entities receiving emails containing the threat of a sustained DDoS attack unless a Bitcoin ransom was paid. The team has observed RDDoS activity before, dating as far back as 2016, but the recent campaigns have been greater in number and duration. In addition, today’s group of cybercriminals often perform a limited attack to prove their capability and malicious intent.
The case studies featured in the blog include RDDoS attacks from an unknown group claiming to be well-established entities including Fancy Bear, The Armada Collective, and Lazarus Group. The blog also dives into attacks from another group calling itself The Kadyrovtsy.
“The increase in RDDoS attacks in 2020 couldn’t have come at a worse time,” said Mike Benjamin, Lumen’s head of Black Lotus Labs. “With so many businesses relying on their internet connectivity during the pandemic, these attacks had an even greater impact on their victims’ operations.”
Benjamin went on to explain his team’s philosophy on paying ransoms. “We recommend never paying the ransom demand, as that only serves as fuel for this illicit business model, and there are no guarantees the criminals will actually stop the attack. The best defense is to utilize a DDoS mitigation service, along with deploying applications across a highly distributed infrastructure.”
For more details about RDDoS and to read these Black Lotus Labs case studies, read the latest blog from Black Lotus Labs.
Nov 26, 2020
Infrastructure expansion and network coverage provide corporate customers greater speed and broadband availability
MÉXICO CITY, Nov. 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — To help further human progress through technology and enhance the digital transformation of businesses in need of connectivity, IT infrastructure and presence in the cloud, Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) has expanded its network infrastructure in México.
Lumen invested in new metropolitan networks with state-of-the-art optical technology to triple the size of the current footprint and bring fiber connectivity to new locations in three cities,
including metropolitan rings of 45 km in Guadalajara, 90 km in Monterrey and 100 km in Mexico City.
“Our interconnected global fiber network is the anchor to the Lumen Platform, the combination of our cloud, security and communications & collaboration services that help our customers excel in this new industrial age,” said Miguel de la Torre, Lumen LATAM Sales Director for the northern cluster. “We understand the importance of expanding and renewing our infrastructure to bring high quality services to our customers through fast and secure connections. This investment also follows the initiatives of the national government to strengthen telecommunication networks in Mexico, increasing its infrastructure and reach more users.”
Lumen’s national ring in Mexico is approximately 3,600 km in length and is joined by international routes in Monterrey.
The Lumen submarine cable system PAC (Pan-American Crossing) also connects Mexico to the city of Los Angeles, CA in the US, and Costa Rica and Panama in Central America.
“Lumen will continue investing in the region to accompany business growth and government initiatives,” said de la Torre. “This underscores our commitment to the development of the industry, not only in Mexico but in the region.”
Nov 8, 2020
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Aug. 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Frost & Sullivan awarded CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE: CTL) its prestigious 2020 Best Practices Award for Innovation Excellence, recognizing CenturyLink for its Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) strong performance and effective strategy in the Latin America and Caribbean market.
Points to note from Frost & Sullivan’s analysis:
- Companies are realizing the benefits of cloud-based models, OPEX and CAPEX benefits, the scalability and flexibility that allows organizations to increase or decrease the number of resources consumed on a per-month basis, improved security and reliability, faster deployment times, and low-risk options when experimenting with new technologies.
- The Latin American and Caribbean UCaaS market continues its path to the cloud and is exhibiting double-digit growth rates.
- Digital transformation continues to be a key organizational goal for Latin American businesses, it is crucial to address challenges such as finding suitable, cost-effective network services that can seamlessly integrate the various technology platforms, applications, and services a business uses, especially during the global pandemic.
- Customer expectations currently evolving. Organizations are demanding new and more advanced UC&C capabilities as well as tighter integration between their communications systems and other business applications. Many customers face big decisions when it comes to IT investments that will support their digital transformation and communications initiatives. CenturyLink has significant experience in managing complex hybrid and multi-cloud environments, and many of its deployments include a great deal of premises-based legacy PBX/PSTN services integration, to protect existing investments in enterprise communications systems.
While the negative effects of the expected economic downturn might lead some organizations to postpone investments in ICT solutions, organizations such as CenturyLink, are quickly realizing the importance of having solid cloud-based toolsthese tools allow them to effectively support remote work while improving employee productivity, augmenting business agility, improving employee and customer experience, and accelerating time to market.
“After our in-depth analysis built on a 360-degree research with objective rating of companies in the hosted IP Telephony and UCaaS Latin American and Caribbean market, Frost & Sullivan firmly believes CenturyLink is one of the top providers in a unique position to guarantee those key functionalities and leverage them to fuel both growth and innovation,” said Sebastian Menutti, Industry Principal for Frost & Sullivan. “The company is a digital transformation enabler and advisor for its customers, providing strict SLAs, and owning the customer relationship by providing a single-pane-of-glass IT solution.”
“CenturyLink is committed to partnering with Latin American businesses to achieve their technological goals, helping them surpass this global pandemic challenge and continue on their digital transformation journeys,” said Leonardo Barbero, product senior vice president for CenturyLink Latin America “Enterprises are facing an ever-changing technology landscape, with high-capacity demands, security concerns, and the need to migrate to new platforms. This recognition by Frost & Sullivan validates our efforts to deliver a simple enterprise user experience with sophisticated capabilities and reinforces CenturyLink’s ongoing leadership in delivering a wide range of services that meet our customers’ needs, all while providing a high level of service.”
Key Facts:
- The criteria used to gauge CenturyLink’s performance against competitors in the Innovation Excellence Award category include two key factors: growth performance and innovation.
- CenturyLink’s value-added services, reinforced by its innovative solutions, position the company as a best-in-class leader in Latin America.
- CenturyLink offers a range of services, including Unified Communications and Collaboration, Cloud PBX, SD-WAN, CDN, WAN optimization and network management, all backed by a superior network infrastructure, thereby allowing the company to satisfy the region’s unmet market needs.
- CenturyLink received the 2018 Frost & Sullivan Award for Competitive Strategy Innovation and Leadership in the MPLS/IP-VPN Services Market.
- CenturyLink received the 2018 North America Product Leadership Award from Frost & Sullivan for its Cloud Application Manager platform.
- Frost & Sullivan recognized CenturyLink as the Asia-Pacific Hybrid IT Service Provider of the Year for the fourth consecutive year.
- In 2019 Frost & Sullivan recognized CenturyLink with the Latin American Enterprise Services Provider Company of the Year Award, award also received in 2018 and 2016.
About the Award:
- Frost & Sullivan is an international consulting company dedicated to helping clients accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in innovation and leadership.
- Frost & Sullivan’s Radar is a robust analytical tool that benchmarks companies’ innovation focus and growth performance in a given market.
- Frost & Sullivan industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices.
Oct 30, 2020
DENVER and PALO ALTO, Calif. VMworld 2020 (Sept. 29, 2020) At VMworld 2020, Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) and VMware (NYSE: VMW) are announcing a significant collaboration covering edge compute, networking, and security. VMware and Lumen Technologies, or simply Lumen, are taking their current partnership further with the agreement for Lumen to deliver edge services using integrated VMware technologies. This collaboration will help enterprises expand across data center, cloud and edge, moving business applications that require low latency and efficient localization closer to digital interactions. At VMworld, Lumen and VMware will be presenting:
- How Lumen can migrate and manage workloads across a range of VMware technologies.
- Lumens edge computing solutions, and how enterprise customers can rely on a consistent experience across a range of hybrid cloud venues, including the VMware Cloud.
- Lumens portfolio of solutions built on and integrated with the VMware Cloud Foundation, allowing companies to deploy business innovations with single-digit millisecond latency to over 2,200 public data centers and more than 170,000 on-fiber enterprise locations across the globe.
In talking with our customers about their digital business initiatives, it comes up time and time again how important it is to support their applications at the edge, where latency matters and enabling performance, and geographical and security compliance is critical.” said Shaun Andrews, Lumen Chief Marketing Officer. We believe customers can benefit tremendously from the combination of Lumens edge compute, network and IT services and VMwares software to bring technology solutions closer, within milliseconds, of the digital interaction. Together we’re helping businesses acquire, analyze and act upon their enterprise data to enable amazing outcomes across a range of industries and transformed business models.
Utilizing the VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud solution and the recently announced VMware SASE Platform, Lumen would have the ability to integrate VMware SD-WAN, VMware Workspace ONE and VMware Carbon Black to deliver a Work from Anywhere solution on their global edge infrastructure to create thin-branch solutions for businesses of all sizes across a variety of industries.
Lumen will also be able to develop edge computing services for enterprises to develop new digital services using VMware Tanzu so applications can run consistently from the data center to the cloud to the edge, leveraging the Lumen network. The reach of Lumens distributed edge computing sites will also improve application performance with quicker access to multi-cloud environments.
The combined capabilities of Lumen and VMware will empower organizations to take on the next phase of digital business, said Rajiv Ramaswami, chief operating officer, products and cloud services, VMware. We are helping customers take advantage of holistic solutions that support the people, processes, apps, and data that power business.
Earlier in September, Lumen was launched with the core purpose of furthering human progress through technology. To address the immense challenges?in fully realizing the promises of?the?4th?Industrial Revolution, Lumen enables digital businesses across a range of industries to acquire, analyze and act on data.
Key Facts:
- Lumen is a VMware Principal Partner and is VMware Cloud Verified.
- Lumen Private Cloud on VMware Cloud Foundation is Lumens managed private cloud service, built on VMware Cloud Foundation, available in 100+ of Lumen edge computing locations.
- Lumen provides fiber-based networking connectivity and managed solutions, with a service portfolio that spans content delivery, cybersecurity, and cloud collaboration.
Additional Resources:
- Hear from Lumen executives about the core technologies that will enable the 4th Industrial Revolution: https://www.lumen.com/en-us/about.html.
Oct 29, 2020
Emergency activations increase by as much as 1,200% since July
DENVER, Oct. 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Cybersecurity experts have seen a dramatic rise in sophisticated distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in recent months. Downtime from these events cost businesses an average of $221,000, so the speed to react is more critical than ever.
In response to this need, Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) is announcing significant upgrades to its industry-leading DDoS Mitigation Service. These new features help customers better protect their essential web-facing assets and applications, and reduce the risk of collateral damage during attacks.
Lumen’s new DDoS capabilities include:
- Rapid Threat Defense. This software-based, automated detection and response service automatically detects and immediately blocks malicious entities such as DDoS botnets. For customers, this means improved application security and availability even against newly discovered and evolving threats.
Rapid Threat Defense leverages threat intelligence developed by Black Lotus Labs Lumen’s threat research and response team. Lumen runs one of the largest IP backbones in the world, which gives Black Lotus Labs unsurpassed visibility to uncover and block attacks earlier than ever before they ever reach customers’ applications.
- Three-Tiered Scrubbing Architecture. Lumen believes that intelligent platforms are more effective at threat mitigation than capacity-only approaches. To that end, the company has developed a proprietary, three-tiered scrubbing approach that uses next-gen technology to mitigate attacks based on size and complexity. Intelligent routing sends larger, more complex attacks to the larger scrubbers, which ensures customers’ business-critical applications continue to perform both at peacetime, and while under attack.
- DDoS Hyper. Launched last week, DDoS Hyper is part of the new Lumen digital buying experience, which enables customers to order, configure, and deploy DDoS mitigation services via a self-service portal in minutes.
“Lumen is focused on developing platforms that help customers deploy and secure the applications that power 4th Industrial Revolution,” said Chris Smith, vice president of global security services at Lumen. “We leverage our insights to automate detection and response at a global scale, and this allows our customers to maintain the critical web-facing assets that power their businesses.”
“With the recent spike in DDoS attacks, the speed of response to new attacks is more crucial than ever before,” said Martha Vazquez, senior security research analyst, IDC Research. “Service providers are at a point where they need to speed up response times to stop these advanced attacks from occurring immediately. Having an automated response that can prevent bad traffic from ever reaching the customer is critical, and the ability to instantly spin up a security service rapidly such as with DDoS Hyper is beneficial for those who are already under attack or believe one is imminent.”
Additional Resources:
- DDoS Calculator: Estimate the cost of a DDoS attack
- White Paper: The new cyber arms race a changing attack landscape requires a modernized strategy
- Data Sheet: Lumen DDoS Mitigation Service features and specs
- Data Sheet: Lumen’s Rapid Threat Defense capabilities
