CEO Sharktech, Tim Timrawi, “Our Expansion to Europe is Part of a Bigger Play”

Sharktech, a DDoS protection company headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, has announced the opening of its Amsterdam data center, bringing automatic DDoS protection to European companies’ IT infrastructure. Hostingjournalist.com spoke to Sharktech CEO, TimTimrawi, about their DDOS mitigation technology and the importance of having DDoS protection infrastructure positioned close by.

Why is it important for companies to have their DDoS mitigation technology positioned close by?

“Latency. DDoS attacks that originate in Europe or target European IT infrastructure are mitigated most efficiently and with the least amount latency (if any) by DDoS protection technology positioned close by.”

You’ve stated earlier that European customers have been targeted with the largest recorded DDoS attacks – peaking higher than the infamous Spamhaus attack. How come?

“It is true that the largest recorded DDoS attack targeted European IT infrastructure. Does this mean that only European IT infrastructure is susceptible to alarmingly large volumetric attacks? No. With DNS amplification (and similar amplification methods), large volumetric attacks are becoming the norm. The truth of the matter is, all Internet facing resources are susceptible to DDoS attacks.”

We’ve also read your statement somewhere that Europe hasn’t many viable options for DDoS protection. Can you elaborate on that?

“Apart from a large hosting provider from France, whose DDoS protection technology is completely automated and inflexible, DDoS protection in Europe is scarce. Based on our study, nearly all DDoS protection companies have focused on the U.S. market. We assume this is because of the variety of transit bandwidth available in the U.S.”

Now that Sharktech has expanded into Europe, has your DDoS protection infrastructure evolved into a different solution? “Yes, the Sharktech infrastructure is now more resilient than ever. Our customers greatly benefit by the additional Point-of-Presence as it more efficiently negates attacks originating in Europe and – when customers unify their DDoS across all Sharktech data centers – overall DDoS protection capacity expands up to 1 Tbps.”

“Though our engineering team has been operating under complete secrecy, I will give Hosting Journalist the exclusive: our expansion to Europe is part of a bigger play. We are developing a new DDoS protection solution that can be applied to any infrastructure, anywhere. From a website to a game server, or even an entire network.”

What are the secrets of a sublime DDoS mitigation solution for companies?

“It’s critical to stay ahead, and play offence, rather than defense with the attackers.” “Our next-generation DDoS protection technology is able to detect new threat signatures and automatically adapt accordingly. Additionally, we leverage our collective security intelligence so that when one member of the Sharktech community is targeted by a new attack, Sharktech automatically protects all other members.”

In what way does Sharktech’s DDoS protection distinguish itself from competitor solutions?

“Sharktech’s DDoS protection employs layers of in-house engineered network equipment, hardware and software to provide the most competitive DDoS protection solution. Compared to competitors – which often rely on third party software and systems to detect and mitigate attacks – Sharktech’s DDoS protection service is developed entirely in-house with our team constantly reviewing and updating our systems to adapt to new threats. Moreover, Sharktech protects against multi-layered DDoS attacks, with predictable and flat pricing regardless of attack size and duration.”

What kind of organizations should definitely have a look at DDoS mitigation?

“As of late, the five most targeted spaces are as follows: News sites and media publications, universities, online services and utilities, online gambling and politics. The truth of the matter is, all Internet-facing resources are susceptible to DDoS attacks.”