Hacktivism and Vandalism Beat Out Cyber Theft

Cyber theft is considered one of the scariest online threats. But hacktivism and website vandalism are hitting more and bigger targets than cyber thieves, at least when it comes to DDoS attacks. And as with other types of attacks, recent DDoS exploits have grown at an alarming rate.

Businesses and the Cloud Targeted by Massive DDoS Attacks

DDoS attacks are getting bigger, more sophisticated, and are happening more often. What we saw 10 years ago is nothing compared to the damage they can do today. One organization was hit last year by a 400Gbps DDoS attack, which is fifty times worse than the baddest of them all as recorded in 2004. Several other attacks were in the 100Gbps range, a scope that was unheard of 10 years ago. This was reported by Arbor Networks, a security firm that provides businesses and the government with DDoS protection services, among other network and Internet security solutions.

Business organizations and data centers are clearly the most affected by DDoS attacks these days. Almost 40 percent of the groups that were surveyed as part of the Arbor Networks 10th Annual Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report said that they had seen more than 20 hits per month. This is up from just 25 percent last year who reported the same frequency of attacks. 9 out of 10 of the surveyed organizations said that they were hit by application level attacks, which is consistent with past years. But there was a marked increase in multi-faceted attacks as well. Over 40 percent of the groups said that they had suffered application layer, volumetric, and state exhaustion attacks.

More than 25 percent of the more complex DDoS attacks affected data centers. Cloud services are not an unexpected target since they stand to lose much more than other groups. Attackers of course need much stronger kung fu to succeed there, but they have proven themselves quite capable. Almost 40 percent of the data centers that were hit last year reported that they experienced DDoS attacks that used up all of their bandwidth. This means that they were unable to operate, causing both collateral damages and loss of business. Total bandwidth consumption was also experienced by 2 out of 5 businesses that suffered DDoS attacks. Of all of the businesses surveyed, about half of them have experienced some type of DDoS attack.

Most of the businesses that do have protections in place to ward off and cope with DDoS attacks are protecting their financial investments. But this is not enough since most DDoS attacks are not executed by thieves, but by vandals and hacktivists. Arbor Networks says that revenge vandalism and ideological hacktivism as a cause for running a DDoS attack are more prominent than the theft of corporate assets. There has been a lot of hacktivism and vandalism within the Internet community before today, but the ratio has steadily widened in recent years. The most prominent target for vandalism is now gaming-related DDoS attacks, where gamers attack each other to get even. One reason for the increase in such attacks is that they are relatively easy to pull off since Internet users ignore the security of their routers, modems and gaming consoles.

Ironically, Caught off Guard

Security analysts say that there have been so many victims of DDoS attacks because organizations are still not prepared to defend against them. A mere 40 percent claim to have solutions that were put in place to aid them in fending off these attacks and/or dealing with them when they happen. 10 percent of them admitted that they were taken completely caught off guard and therefore totally vulnerable. This is ironic since DDoS attacks have been around for so long and so have solutions to help businesses stay protected. When we factor this in, it is really not surprising that so many have been hit so hard. It isn’t so much that DDoS attacks have become worse, but that targeted groups are not doing what they can to avoid being victimized.

Organizations need to be aware that they are targets and that they need to start paying attention to DDoS threats. 10 years ago, the network threats that businesses were concerned with were viruses and worms that ate through their systems. They could not control the propagation of these malicious elements. Businesses also faced the threat of data breaches, but these were most often due to disgruntled employees who were taking files from the office on purpose, to exact some form of revenge. They were really unprepared back then to effectively deal with the threats they faced. Today, businesses face a much more diverse array of threats. But they also have access to many more tools that can help them mitigate these new threats to their networks, the biggest of which is currently DDoS attacks. Logic would dictate that because they are risking a lot more today by remaining unprotected, they really should be doing something about it.

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