Reasons Why Every Business is a Target of DDoS Attacks

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are making
headlines almost every day. 2021 saw a 434%^[1]
upsurge in DDoS attacks, 5.5 times higher than 2020. Q3 2021 saw a 24%^[2]
increase in the number of DDoS attacks in comparison to Q3
2020.

Advanced DDoS attacks that are typically targeted, known as
smart attacks, rose by 31% in the same period. Further, 73% of DDoS attacks^[3]
in Q3 2021 were multi-vector attacks that combined multiple
techniques to attack the targeted systems. The largest percentage
of DDoS targets (40.8%) was in the US Banks, and financial
institutions were the biggest DDoS and DoS attack targets in the
past couple of years.

Does this mean businesses and organizations that aren’t in the
banking and financial services sector are safe from DDoS attacks^[4]? Most definitely not!
Every business is a potential DDoS target. Read on to know why and
what measures to take to keep your business effectively
protected.

Common DDoS Targets

Even though every business can be targeted by attackers, some
industries and businesses are more highly targeted. As mentioned
earlier, banks and financial institutions were the biggest DDoS
targets in 2021. Other commonly targeted industries are:

• Educational institutions
• Wired telecommunication carriers
• Online gaming and gambling
• Wireless telecom carriers
• Healthcare
• Governments and their agencies
• ISP, hosting, and related services
• Remote learning companies
• Technology companies, especially with the rise in
  telecommuting

It is also critical to note that SMEs are targeted as much by
threat actors as large businesses and corporates. It is a common
misconception among SMEs that they will not be targeted and take a
lax approach towards DDoS mitigation. Attackers take advantage of
this laid-back approach to orchestrate DDoS attacks against
SMEs.

4 Reasons Why Every Business is a Potential
Target

1 — Lackadaisical Approach to DDoS
Prevention and Security

Despite the advent of technology, several businesses continue to
use traditional tools such as legacy firewalls and dated methods
such as signature-based traffic monitoring to protect against DDoS.
The attacks today are more sophisticated than ever, and traditional
security measures do not suffice. Even attacks that last for a few
minutes brings significant financial and reputational damage.

It is also critical to note that SMEs are targeted by threat
actors as much as large businesses and corporate houses. As attacks
against larger corporations tend to make the headlines, it is a
common misconception among SMEs that they will not be targeted. So,
they tend to take a lax approach towards DDoS mitigation. Attackers
take advantage of this laid-back approach to orchestrate DDoS
attacks against SMEs.

2 — Growing Attack
Surface

The pandemic has significantly accelerated digitization among
all kinds of organizations, including government, non-profits, and
SMEs. Further, the use of BYOT devices remotely from shared (often
insecure) networks has shot up. As the result, every organization
has a widening attack surface and an increased risk of DDoS
threats. The problem is exacerbated when organizations do not
understand the importance of DDoS protection and rely on generic
solutions and default solutions provided by the hosting/ ISP/ cloud
service provider.

3 — DDoS Attacks are Easy and
Economical to Orchestrate

A large percentage of DDoS attacks in the past few years have
lasted for less than 4 hours. Even though the attacks lasted for a
shorter duration, their intensity, frequency, and severity have
increased manifold. Today, sophisticated, multi-vector, and smart
DDoS attacks are easy and cost-effective to orchestrate more than
ever owing to the following reasons:

• Technological advances
• Easy availability of malware tools and botnets
• Availability of DDoS-as-a-service and hacking-as-a-service

So, attackers can launch attacks with almost zero effort.
Further, the financial benefits of DDoS attacks are high, making
them lucrative for attackers.

4 — Potent Tool for Competitors and
Disgruntled Employees

Websites that keep crashing or have frequent downtimes (often
caused by DDoS attacks) or have their webpages vandalized lose
their search engine rankings and reputation. So, competitors and
even disgruntled employees often use DDoS as a tactic to erode your
search engine rankings and bring about significant reputational
damage.

Importance of DDoS Protection

Before moving on to how to prevent these attacks, it is critical
to understand the importance of DDoS protection.

1 — Your website is Always
Available

One of the most direct and immediate impacts of DDoS is that it
overwhelms the website with excessive requests, erodes its
resources, and makes it unavailable to legitimate traffic. Until
the attack is stopped, any business engagement through the website
would be unavailable. It hurts the brand image and business
reputation.

With effective DDoS protection^[5], businesses can ensure
that their website and digital assets are always available. Such
DDoS services include globally distributed content delivery
networks (CDN) that help accelerate the website speed and
performance without compromising on the security front.

2 — Steer Away Erosion of Search
Engine Rankings

DDoS attacks cause websites to crash, experience downtime, and
become unavailable to legit users. Websites that keep crashing or
have frequent downtimes lose their search engine rankings. Further,
if the website owners do not have backups or do not know how to
stop the attack, they will end up losing the search engine’s
listing of internal links. So, competitors often use DDoS as a
tactic to divert traffic to their website and erode your search
engine rankings. With intelligent DDoS protection, all this can be
avoided.

3 — Keep Your Website Protected
Against Other Kinds of Attacks

DDoS attacks are used as smokescreens for other cyberattacks
such as malware attacks, creating backdoors, account takeover,
extortion, content, and price scraping, etc. With integrated,
end-to-end DDoS services, you can monitor the incoming traffic
continuously, secure vulnerabilities before attackers find them,
and keep your digital assets fully protected.

4 — Eliminate Possibilities of
Cyber-Vandalism and Website Defacements

DDoS attacks are leveraged by competitors, enemy nation-states,
governments, hacktivists, and others for cyber-vandalism and
website defacements against companies, governmental agencies, and
not-for-profit organizations. To avert being targeted by such
actors, DDoS protection is a must.

5 — Save Time, Money, and Other
Resources

Last but not least, DDoS attacks like others bring extraordinary
financial and reputational damage. When websites are protected by
managed, intuitive DDoS prevention services, massive amounts of
time, money, and effort are saved.

The Way Forward: How to Keep Yourself
Protected?

The best way to keep yourself protected from DDoS attacks is to
take a proactive approach to security and onboarding an
intelligent, managed, and advanced DDoS protection service such as
AppTrana. Indusface
AppTrana^[6]
helps you ensure that you do not become a DDoS target while also
helping you accelerate website performance and speed.