A lot of things have changed in the business world since the onset of the pandemic. While many companies learned how to be more flexible, these changes also brought with them added security risks. ISPs have seen more traffic than ever over the past two years which has given rise to even more criminals and hackers than ever before. They have taken to attacking service providers, businesses, and even governments with impunity. With DDoS attacks on the rise, it is important to know what they are and how you can protect your business from them going forward.
What Is A DDoS Attack?
A DDoS attack is a “Distributed Denial of Service” attack that is aimed at disrupting the regular flow of internet traffic in a specific location. These targeted cyber attacks prevent regular users from accessing a site or company while also opening that target to data breaches and more. Most hackers use this form of attack to infiltrate the target to steal information. In some cases, this is sensitive consumer information and passwords while in others it is critical information about the target itself.
How Is This Year Different?
In the last year, DDoS attacks have increased by more than 500% when compared to previous years. The increase in malicious attacks coincides directly with the rise in consumer dependence on online services and companies’ reliance on telecommuting by their staff. An increase in ISP usage was so much that it had the effect of being overwhelming for most providers to the point where their security measures were no longer as effective. Both short attacks and other abnormal patterns were noted which allowed for widespread disruption and even data breaches.
How Can DDoS Attacks Hurt Your Company?
Companies have always been the target of cyber attacks but with more people working from home DDoS attacks and brute force attacks have skyrocketed. Most businesses make sure things are secure at their end but forget to provide the same type of security to employees who have remote access. If your business is vulnerable to attack, not only is sensitive or proprietary information at risk, but the information of your site visitors and customers is also at risk. Even if a DDoS attack is unable to break through and steal important data, these attacks do prevent real site visitors, employees, and consumers from accessing your site for a time. This can result in a loss of reputation, contracts, and more.
How To Mitigate DDoS Attacks?
Proper patch management and secure RDP protocols are critical if you want to protect your business while also allowing your staff to work remotely. There should always be a limited number of users allowed to connect to the corporate servers online at any one time. Strong password policies with three or four-step authentication are also critical. There is no perfect solution but exercising diligence, disabling external connections through TCP & UDP ports, and maintaining strict patch management is an effective ways to prevent most DDoS attacks from being successful.
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