Healthcare Company Strengthens Resilience and Response Capabilities After DDoS Attack
Client: Confidential Healthcare Company (200+ Employees)
Industry: Healthcare
The Challenge: The client’s online customer portal experienced a sudden surge in traffic, overwhelming their servers and rendering customer-facing systems inaccessible. Within minutes, business operations were disrupted — customers experienced significant latency in accessing their records and in most cases authentication attempts timed out.
Initial investigation revealed the traffic observed was similar in nature to that of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) originating from a large number of global IP addresses targeting multiple web endpoints and APIs.
Key challenges included:
- Lack of predefined DDoS response procedures
- Delayed communication between IT, network, and security teams
- Limited visibility into malicious traffic patterns
- Extended downtime, impacting brand reputation and client trust
The organization’s SOC needed a structured Incident Response (IR) framework to contain, mitigate, and recover from the attack efficiently — and to prepare for future threats.
The Solution: NSecurity Consulting Inc (NCI) was engaged to lead the Incident Response process and implement a DDoS response framework designed to improve detection, containment, and recovery.
Step 1: Incident Identification and Triage
NCI’s analysts worked with the SOC to identify the attack vectors and affected systems. Using network telemetry, firewall logs, and CDN data, they confirmed that the surge in traffic was:
• Volumetric HTTP flood targeting the main web portal
• Originating from over 15,000 unique IPs in multiple countries
• Causing resource exhaustion on application servers and load balancers
A high-severity incident was declared and escalated to the Incident Response Team (IRT).
Step 2: Containment and Mitigation
Immediate containment steps were initiated:
• Activated content delivery network (CDN) and web application firewall (WAF) DDoS protection
• Applied geolocation blocking for suspicious IP ranges
• Implemented rate limiting on login and search APIs
• Rerouted legitimate traffic through DDoS scrubbing centers
• Engaged ISP and cloud provider for additional traffic filtering
Step 3: Investigation and Root Cause Analysis
After containment, the NCI team conducted a detailed analysis to understand the nature and motive of the attack. Findings included:
• Attack originated from a botnet leveraging compromised IoT devices
• Targeting appeared financially motivated, potentially linked to competitor disruption
• No data breach or compromise was detected during the event
Network and SIEM logs were retained and analyzed to enhance detection rules for future attacks.
Step 4: Recovery and Service Restoration
Once malicious traffic subsided, services were restored in a controlled manner.
• Application servers were rebalanced across regions
• Load balancer configurations were optimized
• Continuous monitoring was implemented to ensure no residual effects
Step 5: Post-Incident Review and Playbook Development
Following recovery, NCI facilitated a post-incident review with IT, SOC, and business stakeholders. A new DDoS Incident Response Playbook was developed, including:
• Defined escalation paths and communication procedures
• Automated detection and mitigation workflows
• Integration of threat intelligence for proactive blocking
• Tabletop exercises and simulated drills for SOC readiness
Key Benefits
- Faster Response and Containment: Structured playbooks enabled rapid mitigation.
• Enhanced Visibility: Improved traffic monitoring and log correlation across multiple platforms.
• Resilient Infrastructure: CDN and WAF protections hardened perimeter defenses.
• Prepared SOC: Analysts trained on automated DDoS response workflows.
• Reduced Business Impact: Restored services quickly with minimal customer disruption.
Client Testimonial
“NSecurity Consulting guided us through one of our most critical security incidents. Their structured incident response approach helped us recover operations in record time and build stronger defenses against future DDoS attacks.” – CIO, Healthcare Company