Corero is focused on security solutions to mitigate DDoS attacks. Corero has defined the market for on premises First Line of Defense and
have developed the following key competitive advantages:

Real-time protection:
Blocks both network-layer flooding attacks,
as well as the more difficult to detect, low
and slow application-layer attacks.

Unrivalled analytics:
and security event reporting
Sophisticated security event data
presented in dashboards of actionable
security intelligence.

Industry-leading density,
scalability and performance:
Protection is provided through configurable
access policies with scalability from
10Gbps to 1Tbps in a single rack.

Granular configuration
of security policies:
Allows legitimate traffic to pass
while blocking unwanted traffic.

Broad security coverage:
Inspection of every packet and every
flow (using Deep Packet Inspection).

Purpose-built security appliance:
High performance traffic inspection using
a multi-core processor architecture.

Powerful centralised management:
Facilitates configuring, controlling, and
monitoring all SmartWall TDS appliances
from a central location.

Single solution:
Family of SmartWall TDS appliances
delivers comprehensive DDoS protection,
forensics analysis and network resiliency.

2015 has gone denial-of-service attack crazy
Akamai is going on about the state of that internet again
By Dave Neal
Thu May 21 2015, 08:35

2015 IS RAPIDLY PROVING to be the year of the denial-of-service (DoS) attack, at least according to the latest State of the Internet report from Akamai.
Akamai's regular report paints a detailed picture of the threat landscape. The view this year so far was blighted by the DoS attack to an even greater degree than during the previous quarter.

The firm said that the number of such attacks increased by around a third during the period and by over 100 percent against the same period last year. The largest distributed DoS (DDoS) attack during the quarter peaked at 170Gbps.

Attacks on Simple Service Discovery Protocol systems made up 20 percent of DoS attacks, mainly targeting Internet of Things devices.
"The proliferation of unsecured home-based, internet-connected devices using the Universal Plug and Play protocol has made them attractive for use as reflectors," the report said.
The firm added that the scale of its scans has increased, as has the amount of data that it produces.
"By bringing in the web application attack data, along with in-depth reports from all of our security research teams, we're able to provide a more holistic view of the internet and the attacks that occur on a daily basis," said John Summers, vice president of Akamai's cloud security business unit.

"This is our biggest and best security report yet. This report provides an in-depth look at DDoS attacks, and sets a baseline for web application attack triggers, so we will be able to report on attack trends for the network and application layers in our future reports."

Akamai said that over 90 percent of the DoS traffic was aimed at infrastructure, and that gaming networks suffered in particular.
The company found that a third of all attacks come from China, which may not surprise anyone reading this at GitHub.
Web defacement practitioners did not stay idle during the quarter, and Akamai said that sites including WordPress and Joomla were targeted by these cyber vandals.

SSL threats Poodle, Shellshock and Heartbleed also make an appearance in the catalogue of security woes. Akamai has recommend that people just straight out disable, or at least accelerate deprecation of, SSLv3 in order to deal with some of the problems here.

Dave Larson, CTO at Corero Network Security, said that, while big attacks and threats get the attention, the lower level assaults can be just as damaging.
"This correlates quite closely with the transition Corero has been noticing, where DDoS is being used more frequently as a masking agent or security perimeter degradation tool," he said.

"The big attacks are still occurring, but the increase in lower level attacks of the type we have been highlighting would create this trend in the Akamai data.
"Security conscious organisations must begin taking the threat of low-level DDoS seriously. DDoS is no longer principally about denying service. It is more about degrading security perimeters." µ

hTTp://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2409457/2015-has-gone-denial-of-service-attack-crazy

Corero Network Security Receives Multiple Awards:


Corero Network Security Wins 2015 Cyber Defense Magazine Award
Company’s SmartWall Threat Defense System Selected as Editor’s Choice in Data Center Security Solutions Category

Hudson, MA - April 21, 2015 - Corero Network Security (LSE: CNS), a leading provider of First Line of Defense® security solutions against DDoS attacks, today announced that its SmartWall® Threat Defense System (TDS) was selected as the Editor’s Choice winner of the 2015 Cyber Defense Magazine awards in the Data Center Security Solutions category. With data center outages due to DDoS attacks averaging 86 minutes and costing approximately $8000 per minute, Corero’s SmartWall TDS is enabling these organizations to quickly respond to attacks, protect their customers and ensure maximum service availability.

http://www.corero.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/corero-network-security-wins-2015-cyber-defense-magazine-award/




Corero Network Security Receives Multiple Global Excellence Awards from Info Security Products Guide

Company’s SmartWall Threat Defense System Recognized in “Innovation in Enterprise Security” and “Security Products and Solutions for Finance and Banking” Categories

Hudson, MA – May 06, 2015 – Corero Network Security (LSE: CNS), a leading provider of First Line of Defense® security solutions against DDoS attacks, today announced that its SmartWall Threat Defense System (TDS) was selected for two 2015 Global Excellence Awards from Info Security Products Guide. As cyber criminals continue to evolve their use of DDoS attacks to infiltrate corporate networks, organizations are relying on Corero’s solutions to mitigate these attacks, maintain operations, and safeguard corporate and customer data from unauthorized access.

http://www.corero.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/corero-network-security-receives-multiple-global-excellence-awards-from-info-security-products-guide/

According to Infonetics Research;
Corero is (or should be) in a sweet spot for the next few years, with the - DDos mitigation - security market forecast high growth of 66% up to 2018, by which time it is forecast to be a $1.5 billion market.

The key trends expected to have a positive
impact on the Corero market are:

• Hosting and service providers
(including cloud providers), and their
customers increasingly being impacted
by DDoS attacks and cyber threats.

• On-line enterprises, of all sizes, are
seeing an increase in DDoS attacks
which adversely impact revenue
generation, customer satisfaction
and brand value, and such attacks
are increasingly used as a smokescreen
for other cyber threats.

• Growth in cloud computing (which is
forecast to increase over 300% in the
period 2013 to 2020 to over $191 billion)
and the trend of organisations
outsourcing their IT infrastructure
is increasing demand for service
providers and hosting/cloud providers
to deliver protection against DDoS
and cyber threats.

WHAT ARE DDOS ATTACKS

For the most part, DDoS attacks are used
to disrupt the online business by extorting
money, disrupting normal operations,
inciting anger among a company’s user
base, or acting as a distraction while
cybercriminals exploit a security loophole
with the intent to steal data.

A DDoS attack begins when an attacker
uses a powerful computer or series of
computers, such as those in a botnet
(network of computers infected with
malware designed to create such a
network) or voluntary botnet (network of
computers whose owners have
volunteered them to become part of a
botnet), to target a particular IP address
with multiple simultaneous requests and
other commands to the point that the
server is no longer able to keep up with
the requests. When this happens, the
attacked server, such as a Web server or
authentication server, will crash or be
forced offline, bringing with it the
company website and/or the services
that its legitimate users and customers
rely on. The immediate and long-term
fallout of such attacks can cripple a
business, and sometimes the
organisation never fully recovers.

DDoS attacks generally fall into one of two
categories, an application layer attack or a
network layer attack. Application layer
attacks occur when cybercriminals target
an organisation’s applications, including a
website. These attacks disrupt by
preventing customers and employees from
accessing services. Network layer attacks
attempt to overwhelm the networking
equipment to prevent it from maintaining a
connection. A third category of DDoS
attack uses a combination of the two
aforementioned techniques, earning it a
hybrid attack designation. In these
instances, criminals vary and alternate
their attacks to achieve their goals.

DDoS attacks can be highly disruptive to
Internet connected organisations and
attacks are costly in terms of data theft
(breach), lost revenues, damaged brand
or reputation and remediation costs.
Furthermore, DDoS attacks have also
been used as distractions to confuse or
overload security protection equipment
(such as firewalls) and staff, while data
theft is undertaken.

Company Presentation

Corero Network Security (CNS)

The Stock Market Show - 13 September 2014 (pdf)

http://www.corero.com/investors/Investor%20Relations%20Assets/Corero%20Presentation%20-%20The%20Stock%20Market%20Show%2013-Sep-14%20-%20Final.pdf

Directors show their faith in the company by purchasing more than £2m shares, in a share placing at 15p per share. Interesting view from Paul Scott, see below:


Friday, Feb 08 2013
Small Cap Report by Paul Scott

Shares in network security company Corero Network Security (LON:CNS) are likely to take a bath today, after they announce a £4m Placing of 27m new shares at 15p (a discount of 23% to last night's close of 19.5p, although the shares started dropping sharply just over 2 weeks ago, so presumably there's been some advance selling by people in the know? Or it might just be a coincidence, who knows?What is interesting is that over two thirds of the Placing shares are being taken up by Directors and management. That's a pretty serious commitment of their own money, which should certainly motivate them to make this work. On the other hand, as set out in today's RNS, management are considered a Concert Party, and will hold 40.8% of the enlarged shares.So that puts then in a dominant position which could lead to a buyout on the cheap, although it should be noted that assurances have been published in today's RNS that their intention is for CNS to remain quoted on AIM.I might look at this one again, as it's rare to see Directors stump up over £2m of their own dosh to support a fund-raising, so they clearly believe in the company.

See more at:

http://www.stockopedia.com/content/small-cap-report-8-feb-byot-imtk-vnet-cns-inl-trcs-cup-70730/#.dpuf

At the share placing (at 15p per share) in which the directors and major shareholders took part, Richard John Koch increased his shareholding in CNS to 12,050,000 shares (10.42%).


Corero Network Security PLC Holdings in Company (15.12.2014):

http://www.moneyam.com/action/news/showArticle?id=4942223

--------------------


Following the share placing,
Richard John Koch (early stage investor) further increases his shareholding in CNS to 13,891,000 shares (12%).

Richard John Koch is an early-stage investor in venture capital and small-cap stocks. His previous investments have included Filofax, Belgo, Plymouth Gin, and Betfair. He was co-founder of LEK Consulting and before that a partner of Bain & Company and a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group.


Corero Network Security PLC Holding(s) in Company (02.03.2015):

http://www.moneyam.com/action/news/showArticle?id=4986828



Richard John Koch is obviousely confident with Corero's "DDos Threat Defense System" product offerings by investing a considerable amount of his money in this company.
His personel CNS shareholding (13,891,000 shares) is worth more than £1.9m at 13.75p (mid price) per share.

Company (CNS) info:

Shares in issue = 115,637,416


As at 9 June 2015 the following shareholders held more than 3% of the issued share capital:

Richard Koch hold 13,891,000 shares = 12.0%

Herald Investment Management hold 8,261,723 shares = 7.1%

Sabvest Capital Holdings Limited hold 8,200,000 share = 7.1%

Peter Kennedy Gain hold 5,633,333 shares = 4.9%




Directors Interests:

Jens Montanana* holds 45,690,354 shares = 39.5%

Richard Last holds 1,066,667 shares = 0.9%

Andrew Miller holds 723,255 shares = 0.6%

Ashley Stephenson holds 38,000 shares = 0.0%



* of which 20,936,545 are held in the name of JPM International Limited, which is wholly owned by Jens Montanana and 12,000,000 are held in the name of The New Millennium Technology Trust of which Jens Montanana is a beneficiary.

As you can see from the previous post, with the Directors and Managment having such a large stake in the company (which is a condiderable amount of money), they have got a very big incentive to make this work.

Market Capitalisation (115,637,416 shares) = £15,900,144

Net cash = $6.0 million (£3.85m) at 31 December 2014

No debts

Forecast to be loss making this financial year (loss -1.95p) according to Fincap.

But I am hopeful of a lesser loss than forecast, based in part to a combination of factors:

1/ High growth within their market (DDos Mitigation forecast 66% growth upto 2018 - $1.5 billion market in 2018).

2/ New multi award winning product/service (SmartWall TDS).

3/ Collaboration with Verisign (a world leading internet security company).

4/ Directors & Management show their faith in the company by purchasing more than £2m shares, in a share placing at 15p per share (15.12.2014)
and now hold 40.8% shares in the company.

5/ Richard John Koch (early stage investor) further increases his shareholding in CNS to 13,891,000 shares / 12% of company (02.03.2015).

6/ Cash on the books = $6m (£3.85m) at 31 December 2015.

7/ No debts.

8/ Small market capitulation at less than £16m.

9/ Will only need to win a small portion (but larger than as of present) of a large fast growing market to break-even.


Minus points:

1/ Loss making due to small market share within its market place.

2/ Cash burn due to Research & Development to stay ahead of the competition.



(just my opinion and please DYOR)


Corero will be helped by the (vastly) increasing DDos attacks on their end users
and according to Infonetics Research;
the - DDos Mitigation - security market is forecast to be a high growth market of 66% up to 2018, by which time it is forecast to be a $1.5 billion market.

So Corero is in a sweet spot for the next few years with the DDos Mitigation security market.


Corero should start to be getting an extra push and get some momentum behind them with selling their new (award winning SmartWall TDS device) DDos Mitigation security services, due in part to their recent collaboration with Verisign.

With which they may just be on the cusp of achieving with their major achievement (for a small company) of Integrating with Verisign (a world leading internet domain & security company) OpenHybrid.

This integration combines on-premises technology from Corero Network Security to defeat sub-saturating DDoS attacks alongside cloud-based DDoS Protection Service from Verisign for high volume and complex application layer attacks that exceed the customer's network and resource capacity. Together, these solutions are designed to provide Internet-dependent organizations with scalable DDoS protection capabilities.

Verisign said this about Corero:
"Corero's work to integrate with Verisign's OpenHybrid APIs has been exceptional," said Danny McPherson, senior vice president and chief security officer at Verisign. "This integration enables customers to stay ahead of the DDoS challenge through a combined, always-on hybrid DDoS solution based on open standards."

The AGM will be held at the offices of FinnCap Ltd, 60 New Broad Street, London, EC2M 1JJ, on 17 June 2015 at 9.30 a.m.


Further info:
•Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2014

page 65/66/67

Looking at last two year's RNS releases for Corero, there has been a Trading Update in mid July.
Hence reckon we are due a Trading update in approx 4 weeks time in mid July.

Found this a couple of weeks ago - for anyone that may be interested,

Within the BLACKROCK SMALLER COMPANIES TRUST Portfolio Holdings,
It states that:

As at 31 March 2015
The Market Value of
Corero Network Security is £91,075 within the fund.

Now £91,075 = 809,555 shares at 11.25p share price (at 31 March 2015).
That is less than 1% of the issued share capital of CNS.

Blackrock were holding 4,262,067 shares (3.7%) as at 25 March 2015 (from the Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2014).

I have not seen any “Holdings in Company” RNS stating that Blackrock have reduced their share holdings in CNS. But would not be surprised if their share holdings were reduced to zero shortly.
Explains the large seller of late.

Click on web links below for further information,

Portfolio Holdings (click on link below):
http://www.blackrock.com/uk/intermediaries/literature/fund-update/brsct-portfolio-disclosure.pdf?locale=en_GB&siteEntryPassthrough=true

Alternatively,

Click on “PORTFOLIO HOLDINGS” link, within the Blackrock smaller companies web page (below):
http://www.blackrock.com/uk/individual/prices-and-performance/investment-trusts/blackrock-smaller-companies-trust

Trading update will make for interesting reading and with any luck any good news will clear out the overhang from Blackrock who it would seem had less than 810,000 shares (less than1%) left to off load at 31 March 2015 (See previous post).

June 18, 2015
Hivelocity Introduces Enterprise DDoS Protection Services

http://www.corero.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/hivelocity-introduces-enterprise-ddos-protection-services-/

It reads like a recent contract win, but I am guessing its not large enough to warrant a RNS.

The State of Internet Security is Getting Worse, According to Akamai

By Linda Musthaler | June 23, 2015

Akamai is out with its State of Internet Security report for the first quarter of 2015. This report is based on actual, observed traffic as opposed to being the result of user surveys, making it a good record of recent security conditions.

The report opens with a very troubling statistic: the number of DDoS attacks recorded in the first quarter of this year is more than double what was recorded during the same quarter of 2014. There was a 35 percent increase in attacks from the fourth quarter of 2014. This trend does not bode well for organizations that don't have a DDoS protection strategy.

The report brings other interesting data to light. For example, the typical profile of observed attacks has changed greatly in a year. In 2014, it was all about the high bandwidth attacks that lasted only a short time. At that time we were reporting attacks that peaked at 200 or 300 gigabits per second (Gbps) or more and 50 million packets per second (mpps). Attackers have backed off that massive size trend and now the typical attack profile is low bandwidth, long duration. Akamai reports that the typical DDoS attack in Q1 2015 lasted 24 hours or more, which is much more damaging in terms of taking a business out of commission for a longer time.

The gaming sector continues to lead all other industries as targets for DDoS attacks. This doesn't mean that other industries aren't vulnerable; just less so than gaming companies. However, all companies should keep in mind that gaming businesses often host their applications with the same hosting companies as many other types of businesses. This makes everyone vulnerable if the hosting provider isn't adequately prepared to fend off an attack.

The observed DDoS attack vectors continue to fluctuate from one quarter to the next. Akamai reports that SDDP attacks represented the top overall infrastructure based attack in Q1 2015, whereas SYN floods took that "honor" in Q4 2014. At other times, DNS reflection and UDP floods have been the lead vectors. Infrastructure-based attacks have represented the bulk of the attacks over the past year., with application layer attacks holding steady at about 10 percent of overall attacks.

Regardless of the attack vectors, we note that attackers are resourceful. They shift their methods often to avoid defenses and to take advantage of different vulnerabilities and the availability of different compromised resources, such as home routers. Therefore targeted companies need an anti-DDoS solution that can defend against a variety of types of attacks, especially when an attack uses multiple vectors at once.

As for the source countries of the attacks, they also vary from quarter to quarter. In Q1 2015, China led the way, whereas the Unites States took top honors in Q4 2014. Other countries that frequently turn up in the "top ten" offenders list include Russia, Korea, India, Turkey and Germany. For companies that do not do a lot of international business, knowing the source countries of a majority of attacks provides an opportunity to use Geo-IP filtering to stop all traffic from a particular country. For example, if a company does not do any business at all with entities in China, then why not simply block all traffic coming from that country? That would block not only a lot of DDoS attack traffic but a good bit of spam and phishing traffic as well.

Clearly, the state of Internet security is growing worse as time goes by. Businesses that want to sustain their ability to stay online in the face of attacks will do something about it, and that starts with a solid DDoS defense strategy.


http://ddosprotectionblog.corero.com/blog/654-the-state-of-internet-security-is-getting-worse-according-to-akamai.html

Ddos Mitigation market potential:

Clearly Corero are in the a high growth market with their Ddos mitigation product and service offerings to Hosting providers, with Ddos attacks doubling in first quarter 2015 compared to first quarter 2014. So to counter the increasing trend in Ddos attacks Hosting Providers are going to be forced to respond with some form of Ddos protection, which should be to the benefit of Ddos mitigation companies like Corero.

It's worth repeating (from previous article):

"The gaming sector continues to lead all other industries as targets for DDoS attacks. This doesn't mean that other industries aren't vulnerable; just less so than gaming companies. However, all companies should keep in mind that gaming businesses often host their applications with the same hosting companies as many other types of businesses. This makes everyone vulnerable if the hosting provider isn't adequately prepared to fend off an attack".

Just a reminder,

It would seem CNS are due a Trading Update within the next two weeks (when you look at the past Trading Updates from the RNS calender over the last two years).

Will make for interesting reading and with any luck any good news will clear out the overhang from Blackrock who it would seem had less than 810,000 shares (less than1%) left to off load at 31 March 2015 (See a previous post).

Nice opertunity to buy shares in CNS at a cheaper price than the Director's, at the share placing from early this year (Director's invested £2m of their own money at 15p per share), of course it's all subject to the outcome of the next Trading Update...