With the bombardment of DDoS attacks fairly consistent worldwide throughout 2015, it's no longer a matter of if or when attacks might happen, but how often and how for long.
Neustar's third global DDoS Attack and Protection Report surveyed over 1,000 IT professionals from six continents in technology, financial services, retail, government sectors and more. The results indicate that 73 percent of global brands and organisations were hit with a DDoS attack in 2015, showing that few organisations globally are being spared with attacks.
Many organisations (82 percent) experiencing an attack were then attacked repeatedly, with 45 percent saying they were attacked six or more times. In EMEA, over half (47 percent) of organisations were attacked over five times.
More than half (57 percent) of organisations reported theft post an attack, which included loss of intellectual property, finances or customer data. Half of organisations would lose at least $100,000 (£68K) per hour in a peak-time DDoS attack. A third (33 percent) would lose more than $250,000 (£171K) per hour and 42 percent needed at least three hours to determine that they were experiencing a DDoS attack.
Following an initial breach, 45 percent of organisations reported the installation of a virus or malware. The good news is 76 percent of companies are investing more in DDoS protection than in 2014 and 47 percent of the attacked organisations are participating in security consortiums to share information on threats and counter measures.
“We present the data from our third DDoS survey as a means to inform the public of the dangers associated with DDoS attacks, and advance a conversation about the importance of multi-layered cyber-security,” said Rodney Joffe, head of IT security research at Neustar.
