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Community Blog Content Delivery Network – Part 6: Secure CDN

Content Delivery Network – Part 6: Secure CDN

Part 6 of this 6-part article discusses the Secure Route for Content Delivery Network (SCDN) for content delivery practices.

By Shantanu Kaushik

A secure environment that facilitates an uninterrupted and safe web experience is essential. Security is more important than ever before. The growing number of cyberattacks has led security professionals to reassess the situation and enable a meticulous security solution that is intelligent in mitigating threats but lightweight on the web services.

Organizations, such as Alibaba Cloud, are putting in a lot of effort toward ensuring the highest security levels with their infrastructure and users. You can implement security solutions to counter any attacks or threats on your web service, such as DDoS. However, securing the entire connection is another task.

When we talk about a content delivery network, there are two main transmission channels. One channel is from origin to the CDN, and another is from the CDN to the end user. The chart below shows the architecture:

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Security for both channels is essential. Alibaba Cloud introduced Secure Route for Content Delivery Network (SCDN) to facilitate maximum security for scenarios where websites or applications are at risk. Alibaba Cloud SCDN is useful if you want to meet and maintain the demands for a high-quality and secure web experience.

Alibaba Cloud SCDN enables SSL/TLS security standards for the content. The CDN service is secured using the HTTPS protocol. The websites or applications have end-to-end encryption with authorization and authentication to maintain the integrity and protection of online communications between the origin server and the end user.

Risks and Protection

Like any other Internet-based service, the CDN is also susceptible to threats and risks, including:

  • DDoS attacks
  • Data Breaches
  • HTTP Flooding
  • SQL Injections (and More)

Alibaba Cloud SCDN helps you create an effective strategy to mitigate these attacks and keep your service secure. It implements different products and solutions, including:

Transport Layer Security (TLS)

TLS is a protocol responsible for authentication, privacy, and integrity between services, systems, or networks. It is an evolved protocol that works with many applications that require secure data exchanges over a network. TLS evolved from the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. TLS is a more secure and efficient protocol compared to SSL that supports newer and more secure algorithms. HTTPS utilizes the TLS/SSL protocol.

Enabling end-to-end encryption is highly a recommended practice that can ward-off most attacks on your service. The content can travel between multiple servers using different routes to reach the user, and enabling end-to-encryption allows more secure content delivery. Using TLS/SSL, you can verify the user and system identification details, content transmission encryption, and detect any tampering.

SSL Certificate Service

HTTPS protocol that uses the TLS/SSL can only be enabled if you get an SSL certificate for your website. You can obtain one by using the Alibaba Cloud SSL Certificate Service. The Alibaba Cloud SSL Certificate Service allows you to apply, purchase, and manage SSL certificates. The Alibaba Cloud SSL Certificate Service features qualified certificate authorities to help you select the expected certificate authority and its certificate products to enjoy full-site HTTPS security solutions.

Protection Against DDoS Attacks

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are one of the most substantial security vulnerabilities today. As the security practices evolve, the intensity and architectural implementation of the DDoS attacks also increase. Today, these attacks and their parameters are much larger and complex, with attackers utilizing bots to target websites and applications.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) is an attack that disrupts normal traffic to the server, network, or resources it targets. Then, it affects the distributed computing architecture by overwhelming the resources of systems in this multiple-system-based architecture.

The most obvious symptom of a DDoS attack is the sluggish service. This could also happen from genuine high traffic situations, but if you come across sudden traffic spikes and service slowdown, further investigation is required. Some of the identifying factors for a DDoS attack are:

  • Suspicious traffic spikes at odd hours in a day
  • Single resource clog or single website page pings
  • Similar user profiles generating massive traffic
  • Single IP address range generating massive traffic

Alibaba Cloud Content Delivery Network (CDN) and the distributed infrastructure protect against DDoS attacks by distributing resources across data centers in multiple locations. Hence, a CDN can withstand and mitigate malicious incoming traffic that could easily overwhelm the targeted origin server.

Solution Highlights:

  • Alibaba Cloud Secure Content Delivery Network (SCDN) can provide an added security protection for your workloads.
  • Alibaba Cloud SCDN can use Anti-DDoS protection to accelerate content delivery further.
  • Alibaba Cloud SCDN resolves any bottlenecks that might occur when multiple users simultaneously request content from the origin servers across networks.
  • Alibaba Cloud SCDN wards off:
  1. Malicious bot traffic leading to network traffic consumption
  2. Sensitive Data Theft
  3. Service Performance Decreases

Wrapping Up

In this article, we covered all the aspects of securing your content delivery network. Alibaba Cloud SCDN works with scenarios that require an added protection layer. It utilizes some of the most influential security techniques for content protection and delivery.

Upcoming Articles

  1. Best Practices to Accelerate Delivery With CDN

This article explains some of the best implementation practices with Alibaba Cloud CDN. These practices will help you yield better productivity, content acceleration, and secure content delivery from your CDN deployment.

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