An inaccessible site is not just an inconvenience for the user or a loss of income: it is a security breach in its own right, still too often treated as a simple technical problem.
For a long time, the availability of an online service was seen as a matter of comfort: a fast site was reassuring, a slow site was annoying. But today, businesses depend on their websites, business applications and APIs, these interfaces that allow different digital services to communicate with each other. When these services go down, customers can no longer connect, transactions stop, and business crashes. Protecting availability can no longer rely solely on good hosting: you need a solution capable of continuously monitoring, absorbing and filtering traffic.
When a site goes down, it’s not just a problem of slowness
Unavailability is still often treated as a breakdown to be repaired. However, an unreachable service can prevent access to a customer account, block an order, interrupt an administrative process or slow down a critical service. The effect is the same as a successful attack: the company loses control of its own service. As long as availability is managed as a simple performance issue, without a dedicated device to defend access in real time, it remains exposed to the first incident.
Availability, the forgotten pillar of security
Cybersecurity is traditionally based on three pillars: confidentiality, that is, protecting data; integrity, i.e. preventing them from being modified; and availability, i.e. guaranteeing access to services. This third pillar is often underestimated. However, this is a mistake: making a service inaccessible amounts to directly attacking the activity. Recognizing availability as a security issue therefore involves equipping yourself with tools capable of detecting suspicious behavior, absorbing traffic peaks and maintaining access for legitimate users.
DDoS, an accessible weapon that aims for availability
Distributed denial of service, or DDoS, consists of saturating a site or application with a massive volume of requests until it becomes inaccessible. These attacks have become easier to launch and can also be used to distract attention while another attack is being prepared. Faced with this type of threat, reacting after the fact is not enough. Businesses need protection already in place that can distinguish normal traffic from malicious traffic and block the attack before it reaches the servers.
Protect availability without sacrificing performance
Securing a service should no longer mean slowing it down. By combining a CDN, that is to say a network that brings content closer to users, and application protection capable of filtering malicious traffic, companies can both improve access and strengthen their security. Performance then becomes a component of availability: a fast, distributed and protected service is more likely to remain accessible, even under pressure. We still need to rely on a solution designed to keep services online, and not just to optimize their loading time.
Guaranteeing continuity means securing the activity
For a hospital, an administration, an e-commerce platform or a customer portal, staying online is not a luxury. An interruption can paralyze an activity, create confusion and weaken relationships with users. Protecting availability is therefore a security decision as much as a technical choice.
Availability is no longer a simple subject of performance. When a site, application or API becomes inaccessible, the business is at risk. It must therefore be protected as a security issue, with solutions capable of filtering attacks and keeping services online.
