Fastly unveils advanced real-time DDoS attack insights

Fastly has announced a suite of updates to its DDoS Protection service, introducing new capabilities designed to provide organisations with real-time visibility into Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack mitigation efforts.

Unveiled today, Fastly's new Attack Insights features enable security teams to observe DDoS activity as it unfolds, assess mitigation strategies in real time, and validate that automated rules are blocking malicious traffic while preserving legitimate access to applications and APIs.

"Security and platform teams need to trust that automated protections will effectively stop attacks without impacting business-critical traffic," said Kip Compton, Chief Product Officer at Fastly. "With Attack Insights we're giving organisations the transparency they need to have confidence in mitigation efforts and optimise security responses—without requiring deep security expertise."

DDoS attacks, which aim to overwhelm applications and APIs with a surge of traffic, can cause significant service disruptions and financial loss. While automated defences are widely used, a common challenge has been the lack of visibility into their effectiveness.

Fastly's enhancements aim to address this concern by offering granular, real-time data about attacks and the mitigation methods deployed.

Fastly's new capabilities include:

• Events: Helps identify and distinguish individual DDoS attacks, offering security teams real-time threat context.

• Event Details: Delivers detailed insights such as request samples, traffic summaries, and mitigation actions for each incident.

• Rule Details: Reveals the temporary mitigation rules and their specific attributes, enabling teams to assess rule effectiveness while ensuring legitimate user traffic remains unaffected.

Ben Trafton, Vice President of Client Services at Yottaa, a provider of website optimisation and performance solutions, welcomed the new features.

"We are impressed with how effective and seamless Fastly DDoS Protection is for our customers, and now we can truly see its power in action," said Trafton. "The Attack Insights and ability to explore the automatically-generated mitigation rules in seconds will accelerate our reporting and is hugely valuable in our mission to help keep our customers safe."

Fastly stated that its updated DDoS Protection allows users to visualise attack timelines and access detailed attack data without requiring manual configuration or advanced security skills.

The solution uses proprietary technology, including Attribute Unmasking, to distinguish legitimate traffic from malicious activity.

In addition to the new visibility features, Fastly emphasised its commitment to simplifying DDoS protection with predictable pricing and no added fees for attack traffic.

Fastly DDoS Protection can be activated with a single click, allowing organisations to strengthen their security posture without added complexity or cost.

Attack Insights are now available to existing Fastly DDoS Protection customers and can be accessed directly through the Fastly control panel.