Thumbnail: 

Expect distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack durations to increase during the upcoming holiday season, especially against companies with an e-Commerce presence, warns Prolexic Technologies.

“Last year we saw attack durations spike in the last three weeks of the year,” said Neal Quinn, Vice President of Operations at Prolexic. 

Prolexic data shows that the two highest average attack duration figures for the entire year – six days and almost eight days – were recorded during the last two weeks of the year.  "Typically, we see average attack duration of one to three days so with longer attacks you can expect more downtime and more financial impact,” notes Quinn.

E-commerce companies are particularly susceptible to DDoS attacks during the fourth quarter holiday season as attackers like to cause the most chaos and make the largest possible financial impact.  For many businesses, a significant percentage of yearly revenues are made in the fourth quarter and a serious DDoS attack can be financially devastating.

Prolexic suggests retailers put DDoS protection in place or re-evaluate the protection they already have, as it may not be sufficient to stop increasingly large and complex attacks.

“What many companies fail to realize is that against the more complex Layer 7 and SSL attacks that target web applications, these mitigation services consistently fail to work,” says Michael E. Donner, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer at Prolexic.

MORE ARTICLES ON SECURITY

 

Quote Image: