DDoS attacks claim 'unintended' victims

However, this complacency is misplaced. Of the companies that experienced a security incident within the last 12 months, 44 per cent blamed a DDoS attack as being a contributing factor to that incident – up from a quarter (25 per cent) in 2016. This shows the impact of these types of attacks in today’s workplace and the need for organisations to proactively defend themselves against them.

It’s not just unintended attacks that firms must be ready to ward off at a moment’s notice. Nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of businesses believe a competitor was behind a DDoS attack on their organisation – most likely for espionage or disruption purposes; 24 per cent believed it was used as a distraction tactic to hide another attack from IT staff, and 24 per cent believe that a DDoS attack was designed to specifically disrupt their operations.

“Businesses can’t afford to display an ‘it won’t happen to me mentality’ towards DDoS attacks, but a worryingly large proportion of organisations are still doing so – despite today’s heightened threat landscape,” commented David Emm, Principal Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab. “Given the number of attacks that companies have faced over the last year, businesses must take responsibility for their cybersecurity – no organisation is safe from DDoS attacks. There is no room for complacency when it comes to keeping operations running smoothly and critical data protected.”