Proactive Defense in the Age of AI-Driven DDoS — Corero - August 17, 2025
The distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) threat landscape is undergoing a radical transformation. No longer the domain of high-cost, high-complexity adversaries, the ability to launch sophisticated and disruptive DDoS campaigns has been democratized by artificial intelligence (AI). These capabilities are no longer limited to nation-states or cybercrime syndicates. They are now accessible to a wide range of actors, thanks to the growing availability of AI-driven attack automation tools and scalable cloud infrastructure.
This shift is creating profound new challenges for defenders. DDoS mitigation is no longer just about deflecting brute-force attacks. It now requires adaptive, intelligent, and latency-sensitive defense mechanisms that can operate in real time and across increasingly complex hybrid environments.
For mid-market manufacturers and industrial organizations, the stakes are particularly high. These organizations often lack the specialized resources of large enterprises, and they tend to operate at the junction of IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology) — where vulnerabilities can have cascading effects on production, safety, and revenue.
Michael Honeycutt, who leads product marketing at Corero, joined BizTechReports for a discussion about how enterprises can adapt their cyber defense strategies to this new reality. Corero is recognized as an innovator and leader in DDoS protection by third-party analysts such as Spark Matrix, and was named a top three finalist in the 2025 Belden Innovation Awards for its contributions to industrial cybersecurity. Honeycutt brings a pragmatic view to how organizations without dedicated security teams can rethink service availability in the face of evolving threats.
NOTE: This Q&A has been edited to share Honeycutt’s insights on how mid-market and industrial organizations can navigate the strategic, operational, financial, and technological complexities of defending against modern AI-fueled DDoS attacks.
STRATEGIC ASSESSMENTS
BTR: How would you describe Corero’s position in the cybersecurity ecosystem today?
Michael Honeycutt: Most people recognize us as a global leader in DDoS protection, but our mission really centers on ensuring service availability and business continuity. This is especially critical in the IT/OT world, where even minor disruptions can lead to major downstream effects. We’re not just about defense — we’re about resilience. Being named a leader by Spark Matrix is validation of our broader focus on keeping critical services running smoothly under pressure.
BTR: How has the rise of AI changed the DDoS threat landscape?
Honeycutt: In a word: scale. AI has lowered the bar for launching sophisticated attacks. Bad actors can now orchestrate and modify attacks faster, and more cheaply, than ever before. On the defense side, this demands protection strategies that are not only intelligent, but also extremely responsive. You can’t rely on static defenses anymore. Protection has to be dynamic, adaptive, and capable of acting in real time — especially in latency-sensitive environments like AI workloads or industrial automation systems.
BTR: What makes industrial organizations particularly exposed?
Honeycutt: Mid-market manufacturers and industrial organizations are especially vulnerable because they often fail to fully optimize the junction between their IT and OT operations — leaving exploitable gaps in visibility and control. Large enterprises typically have dedicated CISOs, 24/7 security teams, and advanced monitoring capabilities. Mid-market firms, by contrast, often operate with limited in-house security expertise and smaller budgets. This makes them appealing to adversaries who know that even a modest DDoS campaign can disrupt production and trigger costly downtime.
OPERATIONAL IMPERATIVES
BTR: How are mid-market organizations — especially those in the industrial sector — approaching DDoS defense?
Honeycutt: They’re looking for simplicity and automation. These companies don’t want to invest in a large SOC (security operations center) or hire a dedicated DDoS analyst. What they want is something that just works — a solution that can be deployed quickly, doesn’t require deep tuning, and adapts over time. That's why many are turning to managed services or hybrid models that offload complexity while still delivering high-performance protection.
BTR: What advice would you give about choosing between on-premises and cloud-based DDoS protection?
Honeycutt: It depends entirely on the operational profile. Organizations running latency-sensitive applications — like manufacturing control systems or AI inference workloads — may need an on-premises solution that operates in-line, with virtually zero performance impact. Others with less sensitivity to delay might be fine with a hybrid model that combines edge protection with cloud-based scrubbing. The key is to select a model that aligns with your existing architecture and business priorities.
BTR: How can organizations reduce the burden of managing DDoS protection internally?
Honeycutt: One effective strategy is to adopt a managed-service model that offloads operational complexity. Whether the provider manages the environment entirely or provides APIs that plug into your existing dashboards, the goal is to integrate security without disrupting how the business operates. It’s also important to start with a proof-of-concept phase — to analyze your traffic, lock threats early, and fine-tune your defenses before a full rollout.
BTR: What role does flexibility play in reducing barriers to adoption?
Honeycutt: It’s essential. Security solutions need to work within the customer’s existing infrastructure — not the other way around. Whether that means deploying in-line, operating out-of-band, or running on existing routers and VMs, the goal is to block malicious traffic without requiring a complete network redesign. The more flexible the solution, the easier it is to adopt without triggering internal resistance or operational bottlenecks.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
BTR: How can organizations justify DDoS protection as a business investment — especially in the mid-market?
Honeycutt: Downtime is expensive — and not just in terms of lost productivity. There’s reputational damage, customer churn, SLA penalties, and in many regions, growing regulatory requirements around incident reporting. We’re also seeing a shift in how attacks are executed — they’re smaller, more targeted, and harder to detect. These low-and-slow campaigns can be just as disruptive as large-scale ones. The business case for proactive defense is about avoiding those costs, staying compliant, and preserving trust.
BTR: What financial models make DDoS protection more accessible to organizations with limited capital?
Honeycutt: One of the smartest moves an organization can make is to seek flexible procurement models that convert what would traditionally be a CapEx purchase into an OpEx subscription. This spreads costs over time and aligns security investment with predictable budgeting cycles. It’s particularly helpful for companies that want enterprise-grade protection without a large upfront expense.
BTR: Do business leaders understand the hidden costs of unmanaged DDoS risks?
Honeycutt: Increasingly, yes. Especially as regulations tighten. In the EU, for example, reporting requirements around service outages are becoming more stringent. And when an attack hits an OT environment, you’re not just talking about IT disruption — you’re talking about physical process interruption, which is a whole different level of risk. Helping leaders understand the full scope of financial exposure is key to driving smarter investment decisions.
TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT
BTR: How is AI being used to improve the detection and mitigation of DDoS threats?
Honeycutt: AI plays a central role in what we call DDoS intelligence. We use machine learning to analyze behavior and detect anomalies across massive volumes of network traffic. Through our CORE platform — a kind of cloud-scale data lake — we ingest traffic patterns across a wide footprint and generate allow lists that help stop malicious activity at the edge, before it hits vulnerable downstream systems like web application firewalls.
BTR: How does this networked approach improve responsiveness?
Honeycutt: It’s about speed and scale. If we see an attack vector emerging in one region or industry, we can immediately share that intelligence across our ecosystem. That enables faster detection and prevention elsewhere — before the same actor tries to reuse the tactic. It’s a form of AI-powered collective defense, and it’s what allows us to stay ahead of zero-day attacks and evolving threat signatures.
BTR: How are you addressing the convergence between IT and OT?
Honeycutt: That’s one of the most urgent challenges we’re helping customers solve. Traditional firewalls and VPNs don’t always provide sufficient segmentation or visibility between IT and OT environments. What we’ve developed is an out-of-band, zero-trust admission control capability that can observe behavior — human, machine, or software — and model what normal access looks like. That allows us to identify and block anomalies without adding latency or interfering with sensitive OT devices that may run on legacy software. It’s a way to enforce protection at the edges without disrupting process integrity.
BTR: Is there a growing need to track the behavior of machines as well as users?
Honeycutt: Absolutely. Machines and devices generate patterns just like people do. Whether it's a sensor pinging data or a software agent communicating between control layers, those behaviors can be learned, modeled, and monitored. By understanding what “normal” looks like — whether it’s a person logging in or a robot arm transmitting status — we can intervene when something deviates from that baseline. That’s the future of DDoS defense: behavioral intelligence that spans the entire digital and physical ecosystem.
Bottom Line:
AI‑enabled DDoS attacks mark a significant evolution in the threat landscape — they’re faster, more adaptive, and increasingly accessible to a wider range of malicious actors. For mid‑market and industrial organizations, this presents an urgent challenge: maintaining service availability in environments where even brief downtime can be operationally and financially damaging.
To meet this challenge, organizations should consider approaches that align with their specific operational realities — whether that means deploying adaptive architectures, leveraging AI‑driven behavioral analytics, or offloading complexity through managed services. Flexible deployment models and integration strategies can help reduce barriers to adoption, especially for those without deep in‑house security resources.
In today’s environment — where the pace of both innovation and threat evolution is accelerating — the ability to proactively detect and mitigate attacks is no longer a luxury. It’s a strategic imperative for ensuring business continuity, regulatory compliance, and long‑term resilience.