What is Blackholing?

Blackholing is a security measure for protecting a network against a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. The method allows packets to a specific network to be “dropped” so that they do not reach the recipient and overload their resources. The network under attack can announce the affected prefixes as blackholes by using the BGP BLACKHOLE community. DE-CIX offers Blackholing at all DE-CIX exchanges, except the IXs in Asia, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Berlin, free of charge.