DDOS attacks against the retail sector may be launched with extortion in mind

Feb 26, 2012 09:21 GMT  ·  By

Network security company Corero has made available the results of its latest study that compares the numbers and the effects of distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks on United States and United Kingdom firms.

The DDOS Defense and Intrusion Prevention System provider’s report shows that 31% of the organizations whose IT managers were interviewed had been targeted by DDOS attacks in the past 12 months.

If a comparison is made between the US and the UK from the standpoint of attacks, the figures reveal that only 18% of UK companies were targeted versus 38% of US businesses.

The IT directors of US mid-to-large-sized enterprises are more concerned about the possibility of being hit, while in the UK only 29% fear attacks. The numbers also show that in the UK, the commercial and manufacturing sectors are less concerned than finance or retail organizations.

When it comes to the motivations that hide behind DDOS attacks, firms from the US claim they’re mainly targeted by business competitors that want to gain an unfair advantage over them. On the other hand, in the UK, hacktivists such as Anonymous represent the main concern.

While attacks on Britain’s financial sector are mainly performed with financial extortion in mind, the ones aimed at the financial sector are started for political or ideological motives.

On the bright side of things, on average, 62% of managers say their companies are protected against malicious operations by technology that’s specially developed to counterattack such attempts.

“The UK was more cautious in deploying web business assets therefore they have not been as exposed as their US counterparts,” said Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at IT-Harvest.

“As they deploy web applications they tend to do so in a more cautious protected manner and because of this may be experiencing less disruptive DDoS attacks. As the sophistication of attacks rises their numbers will become more in line with the US.”