IT Security Professionals Foresee an Escalation in DDoS Attacks Throughout the Rest of 2017
July 26 2017 - 8:06AM
Business Wire
Financially motivated criminal extortion and
un-mitigated threats are the types of forthcoming DDoS attacks that
have garnered security professionals’ attention
IT security professionals predict that DDoS attacks will get
larger and more significant in the year ahead, and are already
preparing for attacks that could cause outages worldwide, according
to new research from Corero Network Security (LSE: CNS), a leading
provider of real-time DDoS defense solutions.
Many in the industry expect to see a significant escalation of
DDoS attacks during the year ahead, with some (38%) predicting that
there could even be worldwide Internet outages during 2017. But
reassuringly, the vast majority of security teams (70%) are already
taking steps to stay ahead of these threats, such as putting
business continuity measures in place to allow their organizations
to continue operating in the event of worldwide attacks.
More than a third (38%) of respondents to the survey, which
polled around 100 security professionals at the Infosecurity Europe
conference in London, believe that the next DDoS attack will be
financially motivated. Despite continued discussions about nation
state attackers, security professionals believe that criminal
extortionists are the most likely group to inflict a DDoS attack
against their organizations, with 38% expecting attacks to be
financially motivated. By contrast, just 11% believe that hostile
nations would be behind a DDoS attack against their
organization.
This financial motivation explains why almost half of those
surveyed (46%) expect to be targeted by a DDoS-related ransom
demand over the next 12 months. Worryingly, 62% believe it is
likely or possible that their leadership team would pay.
“Despite continued advice that victims should not pay a ransom,
a worrying number of security professionals seem to believe that
their leadership teams would still consider making a payment in the
event of an attack,” said Ashley Stephenson, CEO of Corero Network
Security. Corporations need to be proactive and invest in their
cyber security defences against DDoS and Ransomware to protect
themselves against such extortion.”
Hidden attacks
While high-bandwidth DDoS attacks continue to dominate the
headlines, security professionals are also worried about the
smaller, low-volume DDoS attacks of less than 30 minutes in
duration. These ‘Trojan Horse’ DDoS attacks typically go
un-mitigated by most legacy DDoS mitigation solutions but are
frequently used by hackers as a distraction mechanism for
additional attacks.
According to the survey results, less than a third (30%) of IT
security teams have enough visibility into their networks to
mitigate attacks of less than 30 minutes. A much larger volume of
respondents (63%) are also worried about the hidden effects of
these attacks on their networks, such as undetected data theft –
particularly with the GDPR deadline fast-approaching, where
organizations could be fined up to 4% of global turnover in the
event of a data breach.
The Tide is turning against ISPs
Continued discussions related to the role ISPs play in DDoS
mitigation, have led nearly three-quarters of respondents (73%) to
expect regulatory pressure to be applied against ISPs who are
perceived to be not protecting their customers against DDoS
threats. But interestingly, only a quarter of those surveyed (25%)
believe their ISP is to blame for not mitigating DDoS attacks. Most
of those surveyed (60%) consider their own security teams to be
responsible.
“While most in the IT security industry wouldn’t expect their
ISP to automatically protect them against DDoS attacks, there is a
growing trend to blame upstream providers for not being more
proactive when it comes to DDoS defence,” continues Stephenson. “To
help their cause, ISPs could do more to position themselves as
leading the charge against DDoS attacks, both in terms of
protecting their own networks, and by offering more comprehensive
solutions to their customers as a paid-for, managed service.”
About Corero Network Security
Corero Network Security is the leader in real-time,
high-performance DDoS defense solutions. Service providers, hosting
providers and online enterprises rely on Corero’s award winning
technology to eliminate the DDoS threat to their environment
through automatic attack detection and mitigation, coupled with
complete network visibility, analytics and reporting. This industry
leading technology provides cost effective, scalable protection
capabilities against DDoS attacks in the most complex environments
while enabling a more cost effective economic model than previously
available. For more information, visit www.corero.com.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170726005318/en/
Corero Media ContactElevate CommunicationsMatt Farhadi,
617-981-9637mfarhadi@elevatecom.com
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