Cyber Defense eMagazine July Edition for 2022

Finding weak spots in your cybersecurity plan
With threat actors constantly changing tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP), organizations must
stay equally vigilant to protect their infrastructure from bad actors determined to cause financial or
reputational damage. This includes assessing your risks and assets to find DDoS vulnerabilities.
Bad actors often combine strategies for maximum impact against easy, unprotected targets. They may
launch repeated short burst attacks to distract or consume the resources of an IT organization. And, while
the organization is at capacity defending itself, aggressors may use several small-volume attacks to map
out network vulnerabilities for follow-up data breaches. We increasingly see ransomware attacks
launched against business customers in combination with DDoS. After all, attackers can leverage the
same botnets for both purposes.
Even if you are a small business and think you are at a lower risk, you could be in the supply chain for a
larger organization that’s a target. Before ignoring the risk of a DDoS attack, ask yourself if your
organization can shoulder the costs of reputational damage or lost opportunity and if you’ll be able to
recover from the financial damage.
Considerations for mitigating DDoS attacks
DDoS attacks can bring even large enterprise networks to their knees, prevent businesses from reaching
customers, cause financial and reputational damage, and even force businesses to close their doors.
Yet, they can also be difficult to recognize. Often, business owners may just assume that their network
is down, when in reality the server is under attack. Lengthy dwell times to determine the root cause mean
organizations lose even more revenue during a DDoS-related outage.
The best way organizations can effectively protect themselves against DDoS attacks is by using a fully
managed DDoS mitigation service provider that can block malicious traffic at the provider’s network edge
before it ever reaches the target. These services provide real-time detection to minimize damage and
typically mitigate attacks within seconds.
Regardless of whether an organization wants to mitigate the residual risk of DDoS attacks, there are
steps everyone should take to assist with detection. Implementing an advanced firewall rate-limiting
policy at least gives IT an early warning and better log details about whether a DDoS attack is underway.
In addition, many DDoS mitigation service providers also offer emergency options that IT organizations
can use in a pinch after an attack takes place.
It is vital that businesses of all sizes take active steps in DDoS attack prevention and mitigation to help
maintain network availability. Investing in the right security tools and services can provide an extra layer
of defense to prevent DDoS attacks from taking over your business.
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