DDoS attacks could cost the UK £1bn
The size and scale of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in the UK could cost the country almost £1 billion per year, according to research.
The statistics come from Netscout's Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report, which surveyed service providers and IT decision makers in the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany, Brazil, and Japan.
“The tools to initiate DDoS attacks are cheap, freely available and easily deployed," said Darren Anstee, CTO of security at Netscout.
"As a result, there are more than 10,000 DDoS attacks every day around the world. The size and complexity of attacks continue to grow and businesses must make sure their key resources are adequately protected, including in the cloud, SaaS etc..”
In 2018, the majority (91%) of respondents said they had experienced a DDoS attack that resulted in network downtime. The average amount of downtime stood at 30 minutes or more for nearly half the companies questioned and an unlucky nine percent found their systems were adversely impacted for more than four hours.
For UK businesses, specifically, 86% of respondents said they had been a victim of an attack at least once last year.
A staggering 90% of these UK businesses say they have experienced downtime, with an average of 67 minutes for the year. The cost of this downtime is estimated to be £2,140 per minute - which added up, comes to an eye-watering £1 billion figure.
"If we assume those impacts apply equally to the 8,000 UK companies with more than 250 employees, the total cost equates to approximately £900 million," Anstee summarised.
"However, we know that the wide availability of the required tools has 'democratised' DDoS. Much smaller companies are also under attack and so the true cost to the UK economy is likely to significantly exceed £1 billion per annum."
The findings also show that DDoS attacks have ramifications beyond just service downtime. Respondents cited a series of measurable attack consequences, such as revenue loss (36.2%), increased operational expenses (38.6%), reputational impact (36.2%), surging insurance premiums (31.9%) and loss of customers (30.7%), highlighting the longer-term damage successful attacks can bring.
"If something is important to you, it's important to hackers," Anstee concluded.
source itpro
Industry: Cyber Security News
Latest Jobs
-
- Outside IR 35 CONTRACT SC CLEARED Cyber Security Operations Analyst SPLUNK ES- UK REMOTE- £500 a day.
- N/A
- 500
-
6 month contract Outside IR35 Operational Cyber Security Analyst. Hands on Splunk Security Enterprise and Security clearance is required As is someone that holds SC clearance. SOC and Vulnerability management experience. Vulnerability Analysis / Management - Tenable
-
- SailPoint Consultant
- Sweden
- Upto €80,000
-
SailPoint Consultant is need for this rapidly expanding global business, The business is currently in the middle of a SailPoint Deployment, they require an experienced Consultant who is able to help them on this Journey You will be responsible for helping to configure and deploy SailPoint as well as on board applications onto the platform You will also work with the business to understand workflow and process to help align the way the business works to ensure that the business gets the most from the deployment We are looking for an experienced SailPoint consultant who has experience with both Deployment and BAU work and is interested in joining a business which is at the start of an interesting IAM Journey
-
- SOC Manager Security Operations. SIEM, Threat / Vulnerability, IR, SOC Service- Exclusive
- United Kingdom
- 90,000+
-
SOC Manager- SIEM, Threat / Vulnerability, Incident response. Exclusive Project. Management and on growth growth of Security Operations Centre capability. Managing and maturing the team, technical services line and fronting client engagements where needed. An in-depth technical background is essential, experience across SOC SIEM/ Threat Hunting (IR) tools, processes, techniques, operational is a MUST. The role will include, but not limited to; evolving the technical process, building operational capability, managing and hiring team, involved at a high level overviewing policy/playbooks, fine turning of the go-to-market collateral etc.
-
- Contact 12 month- Security Operations- Tanium Engineer / Analyst.
- United Kingdom
- Dependent on experience
-
Security Operations engineer / Analyst with Tanium for a 12 month contract. Experience configuring using, managing, supporting troubleshooting Tanium's suite of end point solutions is essential. The opportunity is due to a client expanding its international capability to a follow the sun model. To be involved in spinning up a European capability. Based in the UK. English essential and ideally being fluent in French.