Financial Services Firm Strengthens Website Security and DDoS Defense with Cloudflare

Client Overview

The client is a global financial payment institution specializing in credit card payments and transaction processing. They handle tens of millions of transactions monthly and support both online and offline payments for merchants and consumers worldwide.

Due to the nature of the financial industry, the client needed high availability, low latency, and robust security for their websites, while addressing high traffic fluctuations and cybersecurity threats such as DDoS attacks, network latency, and malicious traffic abuse.

Key Challenges

During periods of rapid growth and promotional campaigns, the payment platform faced the following challenges:

1. Rising operational costs due to traffic spikes
   • Massive traffic during campaigns significantly increased server load and infrastructure costs.
     
     
2. Availability and security risks
   • Uninterrupted service and secure transactions were critical to maintaining trust.
   • Effective DDoS mitigation was essential to prevent service disruption.
     
     
3. Need for a flexible and cost-effective security solution
   • The previous security provider was costly and underperformed, with limited scalability.
   • A more integrated, high-performance web security and DDoS protection solution was needed.
     
     

Cloudflare Solution & Benefits

The company implemented Cloudflare DDoS protection, WAF, CDN, and Argo Smart Routing to enhance performance and security. Key benefits include:

✅ Enterprise-grade DDoS protection for stable uptime

• Cloudflare’s Anycast network filters malicious traffic globally, preventing service outages.
• Automated DDoS mitigation blocks large-scale attacks in real-time, ensuring business continuity.
  
  

✅ Argo Smart Routing minimizes latency

• Smart traffic routing chooses the fastest, most reliable paths for web requests, reducing response times.
• Optimized routing cut request time by 65%, improving both user experience and transaction speed.
  
  

✅ WAF protection for payment applications

• Cloudflare WAF prevents vulnerabilities from being exploited, securing payment systems from threats.
• Integrated protection against Log4J, SQL injection, and XSS attacks strengthens application security.
  
  

✅ Unified dashboard for streamlined management

• Centralized security controls reduce IT workload and enhance visibility.
• Rapid rule updates and deployment allow full-site protection updates within half a day in emergencies (e.g., Log4J incident).

Results & Business Impact

🚀 Improved site performance and reduced transaction latency

• Argo Smart Routing reduced response time by 65%, ensuring fast and seamless payments.
• Automated traffic management alleviated congestion during peak hours, preventing interruptions.
  
  

🔐 Strengthened security and minimized DDoS threats

• Advanced DDoS mitigation kept systems online during traffic surges, protecting transactions.
• WAF blocked malicious traffic, defending payment systems from external threats.
  
  

💡 Boosted IT operational efficiency and simplified security management

• All security operations managed from one dashboard, minimizing complexity for IT teams.
• Full protection updates deployed in half a day for swift response to vulnerabilities.