Several small and midsize businesses are susceptible to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. What would be the best way for such businesses to handle this problem? Plan ahead – this is what security experts suggest based on their experiences in the past!
A majority of the small businesses and start-ups have small teams with very little resources to defend DDoS attacks.
As indicated by the name of the attack, it stops users from accessing the services and a site by hurling lot of data against the firm’s web and hosting services.
If you are wondering if DDoS attacks are really so common that businesses need to be concerned about it, statistics indicate that around 2,000 such attacks happen on a daily basis costing a loss of revenue in the range of $5,000 – $40,000 per hour for businesses. Hackers can be fake vandalists, competitors, hactivists or extortionists. If your company isn’t equipped with professional network security experts, here are few things you can do to stay safe from DDoS attacks.
Stay Prepared
Every business should have a disaster recovery plan ready for DDoS attacks. Some of the best practices should include identifying the key employees who are given the responsibility. Establish the roles of every team member, their tasks and requirements.
Give the team the needed practice on a mock basis so that those involved are aware of how to handle things when a disaster happens inevitably. Work with your internal PR and IT teams, ISP and hosting providers to recognize the susceptible aspects of failure, routes of escape and technical gaps.
Understand DDoS Attack
There are many well-tested DDoS prevention programs that run advanced algorithms to identify various kinds of traffic. They try to sniff out, identify and filter different kinds of benign and malevolent bots and allow only legitimate traffic.
It’s not easy to judge from just one instance if the hack is just amateurish or professional, though it’s fairly assumed that any network attack that crosses 50 Gbps is likely to be professional. Mostly multiplied under the inoffensive category of ‘network security programs,’ few of the very common hack devices are called stressors or booters. As implied by the name, these devices intensify and focus the payload of DDoS.
Be Ready to Respond with Your Guns
As in all cases of disaster reaction, stay calm without panicking. Ensure that your services are up and running; give your customers a brief. Your team can respond readily only if you’ve prepared properly. Co-ordinate with your team members and optimize the tactics for the disaster response.
Once the attack is mitigated by your tech team, ensure that the communication team is ready to reveal the details to the press and legal team is prepared to handle the possible regulatory and compliance part.
If you are asked to pay the attacker a ransom, don’t do it as this will only mark your organization and they may return for more. Once you are identified this way, other hackers may also sense it and come your way.
Learn and Implement
Once the attack subsides, try to learn things from the attack. Analyse strongly as to what went right and what went wrong. Ensure that your legal and IT teams collect the required forensic information. Create a communication protocol to deal with the internal team queries, your clients and the press. Try to detect the network holdups from the attack and select an infrastructure with inherent resiliency.
Analysis and communication are the two aspects that will go a long way in preparing for the next attack and enhance your team morale. And, you should be wary of the latest threats emerging in the cyber world such as the latest DDoS Extortion Attack.
