DDoS threat recognized by all members of the C-suite

The increasing number and size of DDoS attacks and their costly and devastating effects on brand perception have not passed unnoticed by North American businesses, most of which have heightened their state of preparedness against such attacks.

For its 2015 North America Denial of Service Attacks & Impact Report, Neustar surveyed 510 companies across a diverse range of industries including financial services, technology, retail, government & public sector, health care, energy & utility, telecommunications, e-commerce, Internet services and media.

Key findings were as follows:

  • 91 percent say DDoS attacks are a bigger or same threat as last year
  • 85 percent of companies are attacked multiple times
  • 32 percent of companies would lose more than $100k in revenue per hour of attack
  • 26 percent report DDoS attacks adversely affect customer trust and brand reputation
  • 31 percent say their longest attacks last more than one day.

“With 51 percent of companies investing more of their annual budget to prevent DDoS attacks, this study proves that DDoS has transcended to an institutional threat that is very real and recognized by all members of the C-suite,” said Margee Abrams, CISSP, director of security services at Neustar. “A website attack that was once considered to be an IT problem now reverberates and can cause significant brand damage that affects all organizational employees and its customers.”

As a response to the pervasive DDoS attacks, companies have increased their adoption of hybrid protection by 55 percent from last year.

Hybrid, a highly recommended approach that allows companies to mitigate DDoS attacks by combining on-site hardware and cloud-based solutions, is also the defense of choice by 94 percent of companies who would lose more than $100k per hour during peak business times.

“The increased hybrid adoption reflects the growing need for companies to have immediate, on premise DDoS defense capabilities, in addition to surge defense capabilities in response to larger attacks,” said Abrams. “Companies continue to rely on layered traditional perimeter defenses including firewalls, routers and switches as well as DDoS mitigation services. But when revenues and brand reputation are at risk, deploying a hybrid solution offers the best of both worlds: immediate on premise protection with the capacity that only cloud providers can offer,” she added.

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