Approaching the halfway point of 2023, we can now determine that Q2 has seen a record of DDoS attacks, on virtually every vertical and industry. From banks and governments to telecom and shipping, many organizations were targeted and the number of successful DDoS attacks that caused severe downtime is alarming. DDoS attackers understand that even the best DDoS protection can be bypassed relatively easily.
Even leading security providers such as Check Point were targeted, with a successful attack that took down their site for over an hour. Leading global organizations such as airlines and even UPS were also taken offline, leaving their customers helpless and disappointed.
These successful DDoS attacks carry a high price, and in some of the events, one can estimate the immediate financial damage caused by the attack. Reputational damage is also a key factor in understanding the actual damage of a successful DDoS attack.
We can examine the case of LG Uplus, the leading Korean telecom that suffered a substantial financial loss due to downtime in February; a few weeks ago, it was determined that LG Uplus will pay almost $30 million to more than 4 million retail customers and small business owners following the major DDoS attacks that took them offline. This is in addition to the initial loss of an estimated $4 million, according to conservative calculations done using several online damage calculators.
Why are DDoS attacks so successful?
Ultimately, no matter what DDoS protection an organization uses for its online services, the bottom line is consistent: misconfigurations of DDoS protection lead to vulnerabilities, which leave you vulnerable to a damaging attack. Currently, most organizations have no way to identify DDoS vulnerabilities because they have no way to perform non-disruptive DDoS testing, which is the only known method of identifying such vulnerabilities.
Traditional DDoS protection is reactive. Offensive testing done quarterly or bi-annually by red teams delivers only partial results while compromising the client’s operations. Even with the best DDoS protection solution in place, every organization suffers up to 75% exposure to their online services. Without non-disruptive DDoS testing, DDoS security teams are flying blind, lacking critical insights.
The response of DDoS protection companies
It is important to understand that most DDoS protection companies are very aware of the situation, but they lack the ability to solve it. So, naturally, they will advise their clients to buy more, but buy more of what? When browsing their sites, watching their product videos, and meeting them at conferences and events, you will hear about new DDoS protection solutions that involve AI, machine learning tools, bot detection, behavioral identification, < 0 SLA, and much more.
But the question remains the same: will any of these developments and solutions help your organization?
Well, most likely… no, as even with the most advanced tools and solutions, DDoS protection companies can only test and expose the vulnerabilities they are aware of, but they cannot uncover hidden vulnerabilities and perform continuous and non-disruptive DDoS testing. Thus, their solutions are misconfigured to their clients’ online services, and the clients – that is you – have no insight about their actual vulnerability level.
Airlines, banks, UPS, the Israeli government (including their intelligence agency, the Mossad), and Check Point – all these organizations have the best DDoS protection in place, but their services and sites were still brought down quickly from relatively simple DDoS attacks.
Should I buy more DDoS protection?
While your DDoS protection provider will probably tell you that you must upgrade your services to remain as protected as possible, the reality is that you should not buy any more protection services and tools. Not immediately, anyway. First, you must identify and eliminate all existing vulnerabilities in your current security.
The reason is very simple – any new protection layer or device you add will have the same old vulnerabilities. Only after eliminating your DDoS vulnerabilities, you will be safe, because zero vulnerabilities mean zero damaging DDoS attacks.
How many vulnerabilities do my online services have?
It is impossible to take a wild guess without performing an in-depth test of any organization’s online services’ security, but based on years of research and experience in the DDoS security field, we are extremely confident to tell you that your organization probably has hundreds or thousands of vulnerabilities.
Organizations operate under a false sense of security, thinking they are protected, not realizing their average vulnerability is around 37% in each layer of their DDoS protection.
Unless your organization runs continuous and non-disruptive DDoS testing, you won’t be able to know where those vulnerabilities are, how to uncover them, how to fix them, and how to validate the fixes.
What’s the conclusion?
There’s no need to feel despair, because as simple as the problem is, so too is the solution. The straightforward conclusion is that zero vulnerabilities mean zero damaging DDoS attacks. Now that you’ve read this article and realized your organization is probably extremely vulnerable to a damaging DDoS attack, you should start identifying and fixing all vulnerabilities today.
Using non-disruptive DDoS testing will allow you to identify and eliminate vulnerabilities in scrubbing center protections, CPE protections, WAF protections, and cloud protections (Azure/AWS/Google). If you wish to consult one of our DDoS experts regarding your security posture, solutions, and online services, you can schedule a call here.
In the meantime, keep your chin up and remember that zero equals zero; no vulnerabilities, no downtime. You can solve your critical challenge of DDoS security with a few simple and proactive steps, and even maximize ROI on your existing DDoS protection while amplifying its effectiveness. So, take the proactive approach and reinforce your DDoS resilience today.
