Senior security leaders at large organizations face a stark reality. Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks now strike faster and harder than ever. In Q1 2025 Cloudflare mitigated 20.5 million attacks, a 358% year-over-year spike, while record traffic peaks hit 6.5 Tbps in the same period (same source). New SEC cyber-disclosure rules and frameworks such as NIS 2 and DORA push company boards to demand that protections work continuously, without downtime.
MazeBolt’s RADAR™ answers that call by aligning continuous, nondisruptive DDoS testing with Gartner’s Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) approach. This article shows why proactive DDoS validation is essential, how CTEM provides the roadmap, and where RADAR™ closes the protection gap.
Why Traditional DDoS Mitigation Alone Falls Short
DDoS mitigation vendors promise “zero-second” automated mitigation, but as Cloudflare’s Q1 2025 DDoS Threat Report shows, even premium defenses fail when security policies become outdated or new vulnerabilities go undetected.
SLA-based response windows remain reactive. Organizations need continuous DDoS testing that validates protections on production services – without disrupting user traffic.
Gartner CTEM
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) is Gartner’s blueprint for turning ad-hoc vulnerability scans into an always-on program that business leaders can understand and act on. It runs in five rolling phases – Scope, Discover, Prioritize, Validate, and Mobilize – to make sure every critical asset is inventoried, every exposure is ranked by business impact, every fix is proven to work, and improvements are pushed into production on a continuous loop. The goal is simple: maintain a live, board-ready view of cyber risk that shrinks the window of opportunity for attackers.
How Continuous, Nondisruptive DDoS Testing Works
Unlike Red Team exercises that cover a fraction of the attack surface and require maintenance windows, RADAR:
- Runs 24/7 on live production traffic
- Simulates real-world vectors across network and application layers
- Requires no maintenance window – business continues uninterrupted
- Enables security teams to feed actionable insights into existing Scrubbing Centers, WAFs, and firewalls
- Generates audit-ready reports to satisfy cyber-incident rules and cyber-insurance audits
By covering the full attack surface, RADAR turns DDoS Testing into a continuous process, rather than a periodic event.
Mapping Continuous DDoS Testing to Gartner CTEM
Gartner’s Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) framework has five iterative phases. RADAR by Mazebolt links directly to each phase, turning continuous, nondisruptive DDoS testing into measurable business value.
| CTEM Phase | RADAR Outcome | Business Value |
| Scope | Aligns testing scope with the organization’s critical online services and all deployed DDoS protection layers | Ensures testing targets the systems that keep the business online |
| Discover | Auto-discovers every public-facing service and detects configuration drift in DDoS defenses | Removes blind spots and surfaces hidden DDoS risks |
| Prioritize | Produces risk-scored DDoS vulnerability findings with clear business context | Directs limited security resources toward the most impactful fixes |
| Validate | Runs thousands of nondisruptive DDoS simulations and instantly retests after remediation | Confirms defense readiness and clearly demonstrates ROI |
| Mobilize | Delivers guided, vendor-specific remediation steps plus audit-ready reports | Accelerates gap closure, sustains compliance, and optimizes security spend |
Numbered Checklist – Implementing CTEM for DDoS
- Inventory external interfaces and third-party APIs.
- Prioritize vulnerabilities based on potential business impact.
- Deploy continuous, nondisruptive DDoS Testing across layers.
- Assign fixes to mitigation vendor.
- Retest automatically to validate closure.
- Present board-level metrics on reduced risk and business continuity.
Regulatory Drivers
The SEC’s 2023 cyber-incident disclosure rules require US-listed companies to file Form 8-K Item 1.05 within four business days of determining that a cyber event is material. RADAR Continuous DDoS Testing equips security leaders with auditable data showing that:
- DDoS Vulnerability Management is proactive and fully documented
- Business-continuity plans satisfy high-availability expectations
- Remediation is tracked in a closed-loop workflow that mirrors CTEM’s Validate-Mobilize cadence, ensuring sustained compliance
Business Continuity and ROI
Frost & Sullivan’s 2024 analysis found the average DDoS outage costs 1.8 million USD in revenue loss and recovery. By continuously shrinking the DDoS attack surface, RADAR by Mazebolt prevents outages altogether.
Signs Your Current Strategy Lacks Continuous DDoS Testing
- You rely on quarterly or one-off Red Team drills.
- You have limited visibility into current DDoS threat vectors.
- Uptime SLA clauses are your main safety net against DDoS Downtime.
- Audit and compliance teams cannot show evidence of a reduced DDoS attack surface.
If two or more of these points sound familiar, CTEM-aligned Continuous DDoS Testing should be a top priority on your roadmap.
Why RADAR by Mazebolt Leads the Field
RADAR by Mazebolt specializes in DDoS Vulnerability Management. It works with every major mitigation vendor and has trimmed risk exposure by up to 63% for large enterprises. A Payoneer executive summed it up: “RADAR dramatically reduced our DDoS gap and perfectly complements our mitigation stack.”
Ready to see continuous DDoS protection in action? Explore the RADAR by Mazebolt Continuous DDoS Testing tool today.
Conclusion
DDoS Testing has moved from a periodic checkbox to a continuous control. By aligning with Gartner CTEM and leveraging nondisruptive simulation, RADAR by MazeBolt enables organizations to validate every layer of deployed DDoS defenses, meet regulatory requirements, and – most importantly – maintain uninterrupted business continuity.
FAQ Snippet
Q1. What is continuous DDoS Testing?
Continuous DDoS testing is 24/7 nondisruptive simulation of DDoS attacks on live production systems to expose and fix vulnerabilities before attackers strike.
Q2. How does continuous DDoS testing fit Gartner CTEM?
RADAR by Mazebolt aligns with every CTEM phase: it scopes and discovers exposed services, prioritizes DDoS gaps by potential business impact, validates fixes with nondisruptive simulations, and mobilizes by enabling accelerated gap closure and providing reporting. The result is a closed-loop workflow that keeps DDoS risks identified, resolved, and from resurfacing.
Q3. Why is nondisruptive DDoS testing important?
Critical services cannot afford maintenance windows. A nondisruptive approach validates defenses without interrupting users.
Q4. Does continuous DDoS testing replace my current mitigation solution?
No. It complements deployed DDoS protection solutions, by ensuring they remain configured and effective over time.
Q5. How does RADAR™ help with SEC cyber-incident rules?
RADAR produces audit-ready reports that can prove reduced exposure – providing evidence that boards can present if an incident must be disclosed.
