83% have experienced a DDoS attack in the past two years, survey finds
The ease with which DDoS attacks can be waged makes them particularly prevalent, with over half surveyed experiencing multiple attacks waged against their organization.
ZDNet's Steve Ranger explains why DDoS attacks are increasing in frequency and power.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are potent attacks, both for the relative amount of disruption they can cause, as well as the ease with which anyone—from nation-state threat actors to average script kiddies on summer vacation—can wage them against any organization. In a survey of 101 IT professionals conducted by US Signal, published Wednesday, DDoS attacks were cited as the most prevalent threat to their organization (43%), followed by ransomware (33%) and zero-day malware attacks (19%).
This concern is prompted by the proliferation of such attacks, as 83% of respondents indicated they have experienced an attack in the past two years, with 51% reporting multiple attacks in that time. Just 16% report never experiencing an attack in that time. On average, a DDoS attack causes 12 hours of downtime for organizations, with only 8% reporting over 20 hours of downtime due to an attack.
SEE: Launching a career in cybersecurity: An insider's guide (free PDF) (TechRepublic)
Direct consequences of DDoS attacks are more split, with 36% of respondents considering lost revenue the most dire consequence, while 34% cited decreased productivity among IT staff. Only 1 in 5 consider reputation damage the most dire consequence for companies.
Despite the risks that DDoS attacks pose, 11% of IT professionals do not use a DDoS protection service provider or tool, while 6% are unsure if they do.
For more on how DDoS attacks are waged and how to protect against them, check out TechRepublic's cheat sheet to distributed denial of service attacks, as well as Massive DDoS attacks lasting more than an hour increased 487% in 2019 on TechRepublic.
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