When you have a web application or website, the very thing that enables you to make sales and connect with your customers can be what ultimately brings your business down. Without sufficient security measures like firewalls and protection services, you are at risk of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. This type of attack uses a large number of bots to interact with your software, which overloads the application and prevents access by legitimate users.
Preventing a DDoS attack is getting more difficult as attackers acquire more resources, but one thing you can do to reduce your risk is to implement a DDoS Protection service. Although it can be a significant initial investment, recovering from an attack is far more expensive. When you consider all of the immediate and long-term costs, the ROI of this service is pretty far in the green.
The Growing Threat of DDoS
You have to hand it to the bad bots: They’re getting sneakier, more subtle, and a fair bit more sophisticated. Some bots have developed enough that they are able to conduct evasive maneuvers, techniques that help them fly under the radar of an organization’s firewall. Because of the enormous amount of traffic that can be created by these bad bots, organizations are vulnerable to large, coordinated DDoS attacks.
DDoS attacks have grown dramatically in size over the last few years, with response teams seeing record numbers of bots involved. The amount of time spent attacking is increasing as well, and the average attack now lasts more than twenty minutes. Experts cite the growing availability of automation technologies as one of the factors responsible for the surge; many attackers are able to use automation to find vulnerabilities more quickly and then amass huge numbers of bots to exploit them.
The growing strength of DDoS attacks likely comes from unusually large botnets, which can be assembled easily due to the growing number of IoT devices and cloud computing. Bots can be recruited cheaply by hacking into often very weakly secured IoT devices. Most users of these devices retain the default login credentials, which makes it exceptionally easy for an attacker to take control, especially using automation tools. Although there have been some indications that attackers are favoring shorter, more intense attacks, the massive botnets can (and have been) used to launch attacks that can last for hours or days.
The Many Costs of a DDoS Attack
When you calculate the costs of a DDoS-driven outage, it’s important to include both the upfront costs of downtime as well as the longer-term impacts resulting from losing customers and damage to your brand image. While some of the costs to consider will be unique to your business and industry, here is a short list of typical costs to consider.
- Lost sales and revenue. A DDoS attack restricts legitimate traffic, which means you’ll immediately lose any sales that might have been pending. Dealing with downtime is frustrating for both you and your customers as it prevents business operations from occurring normally. Customers will only attempt to access your website so many times before giving up and turning to your competition.
- Lost brand reputation. Customers who aren’t able to access your website are not particularly likely to return to try again, and your brand’s reliability will be in question. This will lead to further lost sales over time.
- Component replacement. DDoS attacks can damage your software and hardware, requiring you to replace essential pieces of your infrastructure. The costs of this can add up quickly, especially if there are multiple issues to address. At the same time, you will need to be updating and patching vulnerabilities to reduce your risk of another attack, so resources will be stretched thin. These conditions are not always conducive to careful planning, which can cause other hidden expenses.
- Data loss. A successful attack will sometimes compromise data; whether that data is deleted, held for ransom, or sold depends entirely on the attacker’s plans. Customer trust will be further eroded by any mishandling of their data, which may result in fines from compliance authorities or customer litigation. Neither the fines nor the legal fees are likely to be negligible.
Calculating the ROI of DDoS Protection
When you’re calculating the ROI of a security solution, it’s important to consider how that solution fits into your disaster recovery plan. Ideally, it would improve your response and recovery time. However, to determine the impact of a solution, you’ll need to estimate the cost of downtime and compare it to the cost of robust DDoS protection. While this number may be different for your company, it’s worth noting that these attacks cost companies an average of over $6000 per minute just due to downtime.
Using that number as a starting point, you can estimate the money you’d lose due to a DDoS attack and compare that to the money spent on protection solutions. Consider also the quality of those protection solutions. While you could save money and purchase the cheapest, most basic option, you may find that your return on investment is higher with a more sophisticated (though likely more expensive) tool. High-performing DDoS protection should prioritize visibility and optimize performance for relevant, prompt alerts and fast traffic redirection.
Considering the massive financial burden incurred by DDoS attacks, investing in DDoS protection solutions should be a priority. Losses begin at the first minute of a DDoS attack, but they can continue to pile up long after the threat has passed. As with most cybersecurity issues, a little prevention is generally less expensive than the cure. That in mind, don’t skip the prevention and hope for the best. You may live to regret it, but the costs will be astronomical.
