DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) is an effective and dangerous form of cyber attack that requires specific protections in place to defend your IT.
How does a DDoS attack work?
DDoS attacks flood your servers with fake requests for information, which prevents your system from being able to reply to the genuine requests. This prevents anyone from accessing your services or applications, and this is the ‘Denial of Service’ part of DDoS. It’s similar to when tickets for a music gig are released and the website crashes due to the amount of traffic, except a denial of service attack is created by an attacker and targeted at a specific service.
And it is the ‘Distributed’ part that makes DDoS so dangerous. An attacker can hijack unsecured devices that are connected to the internet, and use them to send these fake requests, making the attack a lot more overwhelming than if they were just using their own computer. With the rise of the Internet of Things and smart devices (which are generally not very secure), it’s become a lot easier for attackers to build large scale DDoS attacks in recent years.
Why are DDoS attacks so dangerous?
Current estimates show DDoS attacks cost $500 per day for a wide-scale attack. This pales in comparison to the impact it can have on your business since financial damages can be up to £35,000 per attack in lost customer revenue or ransom payments.
DDoS attacks can also act as a smokescreen for other attack vectors such as malware infestation which can cause further damage to your system and allow the attacker to steal data from your system. Therefore, protecting against a DDoS attack is not just about protecting against a loss of business or loss of customer revenue – it’s also about protecting your brand and your customer’s trust.
Check out our DDoS protection page for information about the measures you can take to safeguard against DDoS attacks, and if you’re interested in working with a data centre to protect your IT systems, get in touch.
