Critical services protection
Flexible and enhanced protection from DDoS attacks for critical services on Janet, including your DNS, website, VPN services and firewalls.
Stay ahead of cyber threats
Critical services protection adds an additional layer of defence to help you ‘keep the lights on’ and maintain business continuity.
DDoS protections are designed to protect critical business systems such as web, DNS servers, telephony, finance systems, and firewalls against DDoS attacks.
The affordable service offers out-of-hours coverage, customisable protection of your externally-facing services and fast DDoS mitigation response times that can prevent interruptions to your business operations.
Clearing and enrolment protection packages – 2025
Clearing and enrolment can be a demanding time. To help institutions stay focused on what matters most, we’re offering our four-month critical services protection packages, designed to keep essential systems running smoothly when they’re needed most.
These packages cover key services including web, SIP, DNS, VPN, and ADFS, with tailored options for firewalls and other bespoke setups. Pricing is structured per service, based on Jisc banding.
For those looking ahead, we also offer flexible 12-month plans and multi-year discounts - ideal for institutions seeking longer-term resilience. To find out more, contact your relationship manager or email securityservices@jisc.ac.uk.
The options
DDoS protections are specifically scoped and tailored to your requirements:
- A choice of pre-configured profiles (ADFS, DNS, SIP, VPN, web)
- Or bespoke profiles such as firewalls
Critical services protection is available with a choice of response times:
- 'Fast' – a slight delay as alerts are triggered before the mitigation start
- 'Instant' – permanent/always on mitigation protection with no delay in mitigation
By reacting quickly to a DDoS attack, critical services protection reduces the window of time in which an attack can disrupt your services.
When might I need it?
The service can be provided 24/7 all year round, or at critical times, such as clearing, the start of the academic year or during peak operating months. Please ask about our flexible short- and long-term protection options.
Service benefits:
- Business continuity: maintain access to business-critical services
- Layered approach: across critical business systems such as web, DNS servers, telephony, finance systems, and firewalls against DDoS attacks
- Fast mitigation response: reduces the window for attacks, minimising disruption to business operations
- Out-of-hours coverage 24/7/365: automated protection during non-business hours
- Reputation management: by minimising disruptions, you can uphold your organisation’s reputation and protect the bottom line
- Flexible scalability: adjustable protection options catering to short-term and long-term cybersecurity requirements
Cyber security portal
Gain insight to your network security delivered via Janet, including DDoS mitigation data, via our cyber security portal. Your dashboard provides information about your network traffic in relation to DDoS attacks, alerts and in-progress or past mitigations.
Part of a suite of security services
Jisc also provides foundation plus which is similar to critical services protection, as it reacts 24/7365, but foundation plus provides round the clock protection against DDoS attacks on your Janet network connectivity.
If you are looking to protect services in the cloud, we also offer a web application firewall that protects your cloud hosted website from emerging threats and helps achieve compliance needs.
Service eligibility
This is an optional chargeable service which is available to Janet connected organisations.
Case studies
Kingston University
Clearing at Kingston University is as busy as the Black Friday sales and they needed to reduce the risks and make resilient systems even stronger. Read the Kingston University case study.
New College Durham
New College Durham has been ahead of the curve with their proactive approach to combating the threat of DDoS attacks. Read the New College Durham case study (pdf).
How to buy
Eligible Jisc members can purchase critical services protection direct from Jisc, however Jisc have been appointed as an approved supplier on the Crown Commercial Services dynamic purchasing system (DPS).
The benefit for our members in purchasing through the DPS is that it allows public sector buyers to procure an extensive variety of cyber security services from a range of pre-qualified suppliers.
Visit the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) website for more information. The ‘how to buy’ section gives full details for registering as a buyer and navigating through the process.
Once registered, to find critical services protection in the list of suppliers, enter the search terms “threat intelligence” or “cyber incident response".
The CCS run regular webinars for customers explaining what and how to buy from the new cyber security DPS. See upcoming webinar sessions.
ISO certification
This service is included within the scope of our ISO9001 and ISO27001 certificates.
