Even though distributed denial-of-service attacks are nothing new under the sun, the repercussions are often underestimated. Such an attack will cause a major outage for the service in question, yet also result in significant financial losses. In fact, a new report claims most DDoS attacks can cause up to US$2.5m in losses. That is quite a steep amount most small businesses will not overcome.

Do Not Underestimate The Power of DDoS Attacks

A new report by Neustar goes to show enterprises still have a lot of work to do when it comes to dealing with DDoS attacks. The response time for such an attack will need to be shorted quite a bit, and the mitigation of DDoS attacks still requires a bit of work. Unless major improvements are made, it is believed companies will face up to US$2.5m in financial damages for every DDoS attack performed against them.

It is anything but surprising to learn the large majority of surveyed companies have dealt with a DDoS attack throughout 2016. Given the sheer popularity of such attacks against companies and online service providers this year as well, it is expected that number will only increase as more time progresses. Not something to look forward to by any means, unless you are someone looking to cause financial distress for a particular company.

To be more precise, the 849 companies targeted by DDoS attacks – according to this survey – have paid a total of US$2.2bn in financial damages. This is quite a high number, although it is not entirely shocking either. For every minute the service or company is offline, they lose revenue. Additionally, they have to mitigate the attack by acquiring additional resources. Plus, the DDoS attack in question may have long-lasting effects on the company’s infrastructure as well.

One particular company surveyed explains how they make about US$1m an hour in revenue. However, they were attacked multiple times in the past twelve months. Every single attack has cost the company between US$12m and US$30m to mitigate alone. This number is based on a three-hour detection and three-hour response window. While this is an extreme example, in terms of revenue, things are not looking much better for most other companies out there.

The Neustar survey mentions how the average company loses US$100,000 per hour due to a DDoS attack. Some attacks may cost more money, depending on what type of business venture the company is involved in. There is a 43% chance of such attacks costing over US$250,000 per hour, which is an astronomical fee to pay for small and medium-sized businesses.

In the end, companies and service providers have to ask themselves what they can do to mitigate attacks and cut revenue losses in half or better. There is no simple answer to this problem, unfortunately, as it becomes easier to execute DDoS attacks thanks to the long list of vulnerable IoT devices. DDoS attacks are often underestimated, yet they pose a far more powerful trend than people give them credit for.

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