Patent ID: 8346960

Claim:
A method for managing, within a backbone network, backbone network traffic addressed to a particular target and comprising distributed denial of service traffic and non-distributed denial of service traffic, the method comprising: monitoring the backbone network traffic for the distributed denial of service traffic by utilizing a traffic monitoring device, wherein the traffic monitoring device notifies a route controller of the distributed denial of service traffic, provides an alert to the route controller if more than a configurable amount of the backbone network traffic is distributed denial of service traffic, and allows at least a portion of the non-distributed denial of service traffic to continue to the particular target without redirection to a scrubbing complex; redirecting at least a portion of the distributed denial of service traffic to the scrubbing complex by utilizing the route controller, wherein the scrubbing complex is implemented via a predetermined information device, and wherein the route controller is configured to advertise a route to a backbone network ingress point via internal border gateway protocol and to provide automated dynamic control of the portion of the distributed denial of service traffic redirected to the scrubbing complex; transmitting scrubbed distributed denial of service traffic from the scrubbing complex via a tunnel that prevents the scrubbed distributed denial of service traffic from being looped repeatedly through the scrubbing complex; and ranking a plurality of sources that are transmitting the distributed denial of service traffic to the particular target, wherein the sources are ranked at least in part based on an amount of traffic contributed by each source of the plurality of sources.