Partner POV | How DDoS Attacks Are Impacting Remote Work and Business Continuity

This article was written and contributed by our partner, NETSCOUT.

Even years after the global pandemic of COVID-19, it looks like hybrid and remote workforces is here to stay.  COVID-19 has reshaped the industry with working from home and utilizing online collaboration tools becoming the norm, and many enterprises, governments and organizations are still unable to effectively support this change.  As IT departments scramble to provide access to vital applications and services, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attackers see one thing: opportunity.  And not only is the number of DDoS attacks growing year after year, but the bad actors are also becoming more strategic by changing how they attack to evade standard defenses.  It's clear that organizations face heightened attack risk, and it is critical to understand the Global Cyber Threat landscape.  To effectively adapt to this ever-changing environment, you need critical insights for those who must defend against these DDoS attacks, and effectively manage network availability, and business continuity.

The unprecedented switch to remote work and learning has created a massive strain on network, security, and application infrastructures, and even the smallest DDoS attack could affect remote user access to corporate resources. This is where understanding the Global Cyber Threat landscape comes into play.  Understanding the landscape requires anonymized data from global sources that have the visibility across regions, industries, and users.  And, just collecting the data is not enough, it needs to be validated and curated to provide analytics such as attack size, vectors, source and destination countries, a report of DDoS activity for selected time periods with filtering capabilities.

To effectively understand the landscape, you must have advanced access that unlocks features, including:

1. Historical DDoS attack data sourced from 10+ years to the present, which allows analysts to look for attack trends over time.
2. Yearly, quarterly, or monthly summary reports that highlight global DDoS attack activity, including attack frequencies, volume, speed, duration source, and target countries or industries.
3. The ability to create and reuse an unlimited number of customized filters known as "neighborhoods." A neighborhood allows you to analyze DDoS attack activity by country and/or industry sector.

For example, let's say you are responsible for ensuring network uptime, availability, and business continuity for a US-based retail organization. By using the neighborhood, you can build a comprehensive view of how the DDoS threat landscape could impact your organization. This level of information can help you understand what is happening in your geographic region or to companies within your business ecosystem, such as supply chain and channel partners and customers. With this knowledge, you can answer questions such as:

1. How many DDoS attacks have targeted US retail organizations over the last few years?
2. Are these attack numbers trending up or down?
3. What are the most common attack sizes and vectors used against US retail organizations?
4. How does this compare to other verticals in the US or the rest of the world?

It's this level of threat awareness that enables an organization to determine its DDoS attack risk and put the appropriate level of DDoS attack protection in place.

An example of this type of tool is the Cyber Threat Horizon from NETSCOUT.

This is an interactive tool that provides the data for visibility to the global cyber security threat landscape.  It is composed of highly curated data from over 400 service providers globally.  Cyber Threat Horizon presents its curated data in a way that enables your organization to understand how it impacts your business. 

You can parse the data anyway you want…by industry, by vertical, region or country.  NETSCOUT provides real time updates that are combined with expert analysis that enables you to make strategic decisions around your cyber security. 

AND…Cyber Threat Horizon provides contextualized visibility into Over-the-Horizon threat activity under a single pane of glass.