On Apr 20, 2014, at 8:52 PM, Seamus Ryan <s.r...@uber.com.au> wrote:

> Similarly if most of the time I just need to protect my relatively simple 
> network by implementing a few separate zones I will get a firewall, im not 
> going to deploy expensive stateless devices that can push a billion pps 
> everywhere and send flow stats to expensive DDoS mitigation hardware *cough* 
> arbor *cough* just so I can protect against an attack that many only happen a 
> few times a year.

I'm talking about stateless ACLs on hardware-based routers and switches for 
enforcing network access policies - nothing to do with Arbor.  Arbor doesn't 
make routers or switches.

Stateful firewalls make servers far more vulnerable to DDoS (and to compromise, 
for that matter; they broaden the attack surface amazingly) than they would be 
without deploying stateful firewalls.  Vendors of commercial DDoS mitigation 
solutions [full disclosure:  I work for a vendor of such solutions] who wish to 
drum up business should be *encouraging* organizations to deploy stateful 
firewalls, not discouraging them from doing so.  

Anyone who knows me knows that I do *not* violate NANOG rules (or the rules of 
any other community list) by pushing commercial solutions.  What I advocate is 
for folks to avoid spending extra money and time and effort in order to 
negatively impact their security posture, and instead utilize their existing 
investments in network infrastructure devices to enforce network access 
policies via stateless ACLs, as well as to deploy reaction/mitigation tools 
such as S/RTBH and flowspec.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Roland Dobbins <rdobb...@arbor.net> // <http://www.arbornetworks.com>

          Luck is the residue of opportunity and design.

                       -- John Milton


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