Helly Hansen Optimizes Website Security and Performance With DataDome

The Problem: DIY Bot Attack Prevention Distracts From Other Business-Critical Operations

Like all e-commerce businesses, Helly Hansen’s online store was regularly targeted by scraper bots. In addition, the digital development team had started to see increasingly sustained DDoS attacks. Supported by their technical partners Fastly and Magento, the team had been successful at stopping the attacks, but attack mitigation was becoming far too time-consuming.

“Security and performance are paramount to the site experience, so making sure that we were getting in front of these attacks was very important to us,” says Lauren Nelson, Head of Digital Development at Helly Hansen.

“However, defending our site was taking a lot of effort, not only for our team, but for our support teams as well. It was sucking resources away from other business-critical operations. In order to return our attention to these operations and drive the business forward, we wanted to automate our bot attack prevention.” 

The team had observed that the attacks were becoming increasingly sophisticated and varied in their approach. And with the pandemic, and the resulting growth and acceleration in digital channels, they were well aware that this trend was only going to continue.

“We wanted a solution that could react much quicker than our manual approach, and stop the attacks from happening in the first place,” says Lauren.

The Solution: Real-Time DDoS Attack Prevention

When Lauren and her team started investigating potential solutions, both Fastly and Magento recommended that they turn to DataDome.

“We definitely wanted something that would be easy to set up on our platform. DataDome came highly recommended by the developers at Magento as a good partner which aligns well with the platform and is easy to integrate. We felt pretty confident that it was the right solution for us,” Lauren attests.

Helly Hansen’s own developers also investigated and concluded that the integration would be fast and simple, which was confirmed by the actual implementation and onboarding process. From the first contact, DataDome was up and running in less than a week.

“We were really impressed with the onboarding experience,” Lauren comments. “It was very smooth, and the DataDome team really took care of us. From day one, they understood the importance for us and were extremely solution-oriented. They were also hands on and helpful in showing us the ropes to become familiar with how to use the dashboard, making sure we weren’t blocking any good traffic.”

The Results: Automatic, Real-Time Risk Prevention and Peace of Mind

Today, Lauren and her team enjoy the peace of mind that comes from knowing that any malicious activity on the website will be automatically detected and intercepted in real time. 

“When it comes to major bot attacks and the stress they place on your site, it’s not a risk we want to take,” Lauren reflects. “In these types of situations, minutes really do matter. We want to get ahead of the attacks and the spam traffic and focus on prevention, rather than reaction. We have been quite impressed with DataDome’s real-time AI production, which perfectly serves that purpose.”

And while DataDome’s bot detection algorithms are doing their job in the background, Helly Hansen’s developers and their partners can focus on the things that are going to grow the business this year and in the years forward.

“It’s been a very positive journey for us,” Lauren concludes. “In digital development, new integrations tend to take way longer than you want them to, so getting DataDome set up so quickly was amazing. It’s a great tool, very low-maintenance on a daily basis. The DataDome teams are also very easy to work with; they genuinely care, which is always nice when you’re a client.”