A STUDY revealed that distributed denial of service (DDoS) is among the top cyberattacks that affected various industries this year, and, yet, a handful of them seemed to not recognize it.
According to a survey conducted by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International, the top 10 sectors hit by DDoS over the last 12 months are telecommunications at 24 percent; financial services, 22 percent; information technology (IT), 21 percent; government and defense, 18 percent; manufacturing, 18 percent; utilities and energy, 18 percent; transport and logistics, 17 percent; education, 15 percent; consumer, 13 percent; and construction and engineering, 13 percent.
The study also revealed that 16 percent or one in six of those surveyed has been hit, but the number increases one in four for the top 3 companies affected by such an attack that extorts money, disrupts operations or damages reputations, as well as distracts attention from another cyberattack being carried out at the same time.
However, not all of these most attacked industries acknowledge that they are indeed the most targeted.
While 47 percent of financial businesses accept the fact that they are prime targets, IT and telecom companies don’t buy the idea that they are any more at risk than other sectors.
This, however, is perilous for their “denial” attitude could leave them vulnerable when it comes to IT security.
“As the recent DDoS attacks on telecom companies and banks reveal, businesses in these sectors represent prime targets for DDoS attackers. In some cases, DDoS attacks are a smokescreen for the cyber-theft or result in exorbitant ransom demands,” said Evgeny Vigovsky, head of Kaspersky DDoS protection, Kaspersky Lab.
“That is why vulnerable sectors need to be extravigilant about security and be ready to deal with DDoS attacks. They need to build their understanding of the threat and choose the best protection against it. The days of DDoS attacks being an operational frustration that just resulted in some downtime are long over,” he said.
Overall, 36 percent or a third of companies believe they are likely targets and that nearly 75 percent have said that these attacks corresponded with other security incidents. More than half, or 52 percent, feel well-informed about DDoS attacks and 53 percent know how to prevent or mitigate them, rising to 61 percent of those in financial services and telecoms.
But still the rest lack awareness of such and are not sure on how to avert or limit their impact.
Distributed network attacks, which are often referred to as DDoS, take advantage of the specific capacity limits that apply to any network resources, such as the infrastructure that enables a firm’s portal.
This threat will send multiple requests to the attacked web resource, with the goal of overpowering the website’s capacity to handle multiple request and prevent it from functioning correctly.
In the event of a DDoS attack, Kaspersky DDoS Protection enables companies to temporarily redirect traffic through an alternative route, running it via cleaning centers that filter out junk requests and forward legitimate traffic as usual.
Hence, users can still utilize the service or site safely and reliably even while a long and strong attack is under way.