Cyber attacks are one of the major concerns for e-Commerce companies and companies with online services and web-based service portals. Highly susceptible organizations risk losing business and revenues as well as facing increased overheads when cyber attacks become more frequent and intense.
A recent research by BT Security, a provider of security solutions for networks, finds that in the last year, 41% of organizations were hit by Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), with 78% of these hit twice or more. Globally, 58% organizations said that these attacks are a major concern for them, a view shared by 36% of UK organizations.
The study which was conducted by Vanson Bourne on behalf of BT, involved interviews with IT decision makers in medium to large sized organisations across UK, France, Germany, US, Spain, Brazil, Middle East, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa and Australia.
BT in its statement said that these attacks are becoming more effective at breaching security defences, causing major disruption and even bringing down systems for whole working days, with 1-in-5 organisations have had their systems taken down for an entire working day in the last year.
The study also showed that it terms of preparedness for DDoS attacks, only 49% of UK organizations have a response plan while only 8% are confident that they have sufficient resources to counteract these attacks. Another highlight from the research is that there was a 41% increase in the number of attacks that adopted hybrid, or multi-vector, attack tactics which involve attacks through multiple platforms.
“DDoS attacks have evolved significantly in the last few years and are now a legitimate business concern. They can have a damaging effect on revenues and send an organisation into full crisis mode. Reputations, revenue and customer confidence are on the line following a DDoS attack, not to mention the upfront time and cost that it takes an organisation to recover following an attack. Finance, e-commerce companies and retailers in particular suffer when their websites or businesses are targeted.”
- Mark Hughes, President, BT Security