Posted on December 1, 2018 at 4:30 PM
Surge of DDoS Attacks Hits November’s Busiest Online Trading Days
DDoS attacks have started growing in recent years, and have become bigger than ever in 2018. Even so, they reached their highest levels yet during this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. These were the busiest days for online trading during this entire year.
Link11 noticed a 70% increase in DDoS attacks made against e-commerce providers during Black Friday. However, the increase witnessed on Cyber Monday was much higher, exceeding 109% when compared with an average day in November 2018.
There were multiple attacks observed during both of these days that went up to 100 Gbps, although the average one was at around 6 Gbps or slightly below. This is still an increase when compared to a regular average attack of 4.6 Gbps, the kind of which was measured during the summer (between July and September).
Link11 also stated that attacks approaching 6 Gbps exceeded the capacity of most websites. Because of that, Link11 expects the same to occur once more in days to come, especially around Christmas break, which is why merchants, logistics companies, as well as payment providers should use the remaining time to prepare themselves for something like that.
DDoS attacks are coming, protecting businesses is crucial
Link11’s managing director, Marc Wilczek, stated recently that criminals and competitors alike are expected to use the increase in trading around the holiday season for causing disruptions within the e-commerce industry. The fact that cybercrime-as-a-service offers are now found on every step brings the overall confusion to a new level, which is why online retailers should strengthen their security before this period starts.
Businesses that do not take this threat seriously might end up out of business for hours, or potentially even days during a critical period. There are two options for them to choose from — either to invest in their infrastructure and make it bigger in order to absorb the attack without crashing, or to deploy an adaptable defense system based on the cloud.
The first option will likely protect them from most attacks, although they will still remain vulnerable to large ones. The second option, cloud-based protection, is capable of withstanding much stronger attacks. Choosing the wrong option might have big consequences, and if the website happens to go down, or even slows down, information will likely spread quickly via social platforms, and damage the companies’ reputation.
How much damage can a DDoS attack do?
According to research made by Bitcom, cyber attacks en up costing more than €185,000 due to the high cost of IT repairs, damaged reputation of the targeted company, not to mention the loss in sales revenue. €13,000 goes to IT repairs alone, and it costs around €18,500 to hire a team of specialists that will restore businesses’ online operations.
In this critical period, not being able to sell merchandise within 48 hours costs ~€135,000, and the damaged reputation ends up costing the company at least another €18,500, or more.
Back in April of this year, a survey which had over 300 professionals from around the world as participants uncovered that the most damaging side effects of DDoS attacks include loss of customer trust, intellectual theft, as well as malware infections.
DDoS attacks can hit any online application or business, which is why everyone should consider building up proper defense capabilities. DDoS attacks are cheap and easy to perform, but also to request. DDoS attack services are gaining popularity, which puts legitimate companies in danger. In the end, being cautious is much more profitable than having to deal with the results of an attack.