Page 32 - Cyber Warnings

DDoS Defense: Are Corporate Networks in the Middle East

Protected?

Mohammed Al-Moneer, Regional Director, MENA at A10 Networks

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are growing in both size and sophistication.
Recently in September, a pair of high-profile DDoS attacks reached more than 600 Gbps and 1
Tbps, respectively, ranking among the largest DDoS attacks on record.

And their ferocity is only expected to trend upward.

No one is immune
DDoS attacks don’t discriminate. Mom-and-pop shops, enterprises, service providers and
businesses of all types and sizes can find themselves in a threat actor’s DDoS crosshairs.
According to an A10 Networks IDG Connect report, everyone is a target, but some types of
businesses come under fire more frequently.

Entertainment and gambling are targeted the most, with 33 percent of DDoS attacks aimed at
that industry, followed by advertising media and Web content (28 percent), and traditional and
online retail (22 percent).

The DDoS effect
And while the financial impact of a DDoS attacks varies, the hard truth is: DDoS attacks are
costing companies money. Lots of it.

A recent Ponemon Institute study revealed that between 2011 and 2016, the costs associated
with a DDoS attack swelled by 31 percent, with some larger attacks exceeding $2 million due to
lost revenue, business disruption and other hard costs.

Brand and reputation damage, however, are largely immeasurable, but can also have a
catastrophic lasting effect not easily broken down into dollars and cents.

At the same time, the number of DDoS attacks increased 75 percent year over year, according
to the Verisign DDoS Trends Report for the second quarter of 2016.

The IDG Connect report found the average company suffers 15 DDoS attacks per year (some
averaging as many as 25 DDoS attacks annually), and the average attack causes at least 17
hours of disruption, whether that’s downtime, latency, denied customer access or crashes.
That’s 255 hours of disruption a year.

32 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine December 2016 Edition
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