COUNTRY FOCUS: KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN
Gulf Air reveals DDoS step-
change to boost security
and customer service
G
ulf Air has revealed a
cybersecurity step-change as
part of an ongoing campaign
to safeguard its operations and deliver
industry-leading customer service. purpose-built system-level architecture
that detects and mitigates increasingly
sophisticated, complex and deceptive
attacks,” said Dr Jassim Haji, Director of
Information Technology, Gulf Air.
Gulf Air has reinforced its network
perimeter to pre-empt and combat
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS)
attacks, improve data centre and
application-level security and further
enhance data and access protection
measures. A key component of Gulf Air’s
DDoS strategy is the deployment of the
F5® DDoS Hybrid Defender™. “The solution delivers instantaneous
controls and security measures against
complex threats, exploits, saturation
attacks, with an in-depth security
mechanism that inspects application-
layer events. It offers protection at all
layers, protecting protocols – including
those employing SSL and TLS encryption
– as well as stopping DDoS bursts,
randomised HTTP floods, cache bypass,
and other attacks that can disrupt Gulf
Air’s critical applications.”
Gulf Air was keen to select a solution
with an industry-leading, multi-
layered defence mechanism against
both blended network attacks and
sophisticated application attacks. The
DDoS Hybrid Defender’s features include
full SSL decryption, anti-bot capabilities,
and advanced detection methods.
This ensures high line rate capabilities
without impacting legitimate traffic.
Crucially, the solution is compatible
with Gulf Air’s current perimeter
security controls to minimise
maintenance efforts.
“Combating DDoS attacks requires a
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INTELLIGENTCIO
Gulf Air’s new DDoS capabilities fits into
a wider digital transformation vision that
was recently underscored by becoming
the world’s first airline to achieve seven
IT ISO certifications. In 2012, it became
the first business in Bahrain to introduce
private cloud computing.
Technology is at the forefront of Gulf
Air’s recent resurgence which has been
driven by a number of major cost saving
initiatives. Gulf Air is always thriving by
deploying state of the art technological
solutions according to the latest trends
“The solution
delivers
instantaneous
controls and
security measures
against complex
threats, exploits
and saturation
attacks.”
that swipe the aviation industry, and has
been awarded in several international
and regional forums.
Moreover, it is the first airline in the
world to receive seven ISO certificates
in Information Technology. Gulf Air’s
DDoS Hybrid Defender is the latest in
a long line of F5 deployments over the
past eight years.
Other Application Delivery Controller
(ADC) solutions in use include F5® BIG-
IP® Local Traffic Manager™ (to simplify,
automate, and customise application
delivery) and F5 BIG-IP® Access Policy
www.intelligentcio.com