According to research by B2B International and the IT security product company Kaspersky Lab, 38 per cent of companies providing online services (such as online shopping, online media, and others) have fallen victim to DDoS attacks over the last 12 months.
According to the IT firm, it proves that Distributed Denial of Service attacks are common online business-related events rather than just isolated incidents.
DDoS attacks aim to block access to a company’s online resources by overloading them with “junk” requests. The IT security firm describes DDoS attacks as easy and cheap for almost anyone to launch: costs are low, a simple search will find people who can do it for you, and crypto currencies allow everyone to conceal their identities. This accessibility means that any company with rivals or opponents of any sort is at risk.
However, research suggests that IT companies suffer more than most from DDoS attacks: 49 per cent of IT industry representatives reported that they had encountered at least one DDoS attack over the last year. Other businesses that rely on continuous online services to make profits also scored highly: firms engaged in e-commerce (44 per cent), organisations providing telecommunications services (44 per cent) and the media (42 per cent). Financial companies are also among the most frequently attacked organisations – 39 per cent of them reported an incident.
The consequences of DDoS attacks depend on their type and duration, as well as on the field of activity and distinctive features of the targeted company. The research suggests that 13 per cent of attacks render the target sites totally inaccessible. This fate most often befell media sites – 32 per cent of media organisations reported that their web resources had been completely disabled due to a DDoS attack. But even if the attackers failed to completely block user access to a company’s information resources, partial inaccessibility is also a serious problem. For example, 29 per cent of respondents reported that they or their users had faced problems conducting online transactions as a result of a DDoS attack. This problem is particularly significant for companies working in telecommunications and logistics – 49 per cent and 45 per cent respectively.
The number of companies affected varies from region to region. Even in North America, where, according to our research, DDoS attacks were less common than anywhere else in the world, nearly a quarter of the companies surveyed (24 per cent) fell victim to them. In Europe, the situation is even more serious: almost a third of West-European (32 per cent) and nearly half of Russian (49 per cent) companies faced a DDoS attack.
Eugene Vigovsky, Head of Kaspersky DDoS Protection, Kaspersky Lab, said: “Even though one in three companies has suffered from DDoS attacks, just six per cent believe this type of incident is the most dangerous external cyber-threat they face. However, taking down a site or preventing transactions is only the tip of the iceberg. A DDoS attack can lead to reputational losses or legal claims over undelivered services. To ensure that clients have uninterrupted access to their online services, companies need to think in advance about appropriate protection against DDoS attacks.”
