Rackspace beefs up attack defenses

Hosting provider Rackspace on Monday introduced PrevenTier, a new security product that's aimed at reducing exposure to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, which can bring networks to a halt through a deluge of simultaneous data requests. The service, which includes technology from Arbor Networks and Riverhead Networks, attempts to prevent attacks by examining all incoming data and identifying potentially malicious packets.

The system can examine up to 30 million packets per second, according to the company. The service also studies a client?s Web site to determine normal network traffic patterns, which can also help prevent attacks.