Comment from Fujitsu on Cisco VNI Report which finds DDoS attacks will take organisations completely offline
June 2017 by Rob Norris, VP Head of Enterprise & Cyber Security EMEIA at Fujitsu
Today Cisco Visual Networking Index report highlighted that DDoS attacks will take organisations completely offline, having grown by 172% in 2016 and are set to increase 2.5-fold to 3.1 million by 2021 globally. If you are covering the news, I’d like to share commentary from Rob Norris, VP Head of Enterprise & Cyber Security EMEIA at Fujitsu.
Rob Norris, VP Head of Enterprise & Cyber Security EMEIA at Fujitsu:
“The news that the size of DDoS attacks is increasing to the point where they can completely send an organisation offline is testament to the fact that the threat landscape is growing exponentially, and is more of a risk than ever before for businesses. From a UK perspective, the UK is an attractive target for DDoS for two main reasons. Firstly because the UK is one of the world’s largest and most advanced economies. It is one of the leading adopters of ‘digital enterprise models’, which as a result means it exposes a large surface of ‘UK PLC’ to the web to attack. The second factor is down to the mix of the UK economy and the service industries it focuses on such as financial services, IP rich manufacturers, dynamic media and communications sector, broad utility and transport industries. The key to all of these sectors is ‘availability’, and therefore the UK is an obvious target. A lot of business for ecommerce is done over the web, especially in retail and gambling, which means these industries are particularly at risk. As well as this, the UK’s time-zone overlaps with many advanced economies, making the UK a ‘logistically’ juicy target due to our position as a global ‘hub’.
“The fact that DDoS attacks are only going to increase even more, all businesses, both in and outside of the UK need to be vigilant in the face of it. To protect from DDoS attacks, organisations must understand the threat, risk and impact of DDoS attacks specific to their business and consider mitigation strategies based on good business continuity planning. Organisations should also work with leading suppliers who can help mitigate availability attacks with technology solutions – cloud based services are an obvious and often effective solution worth considering.
“From an industry perspective, industry peers need to share knowledge where appropriate, and keep government agencies informed; collaboration is key. It is a mixture of these solutions that will help deter hackers from launching a DDoS attack.”