When Under DDOS Attack, Some Americans Would Call Their Spouses First

A new study commissioned by the Public Interest Registry (PIR) shows that 85% of Americans are uninformed or ill-equipped when it comes to distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks.

DDOS attacks have been highly problematic in the past period. Banks and other high-profile organizations have been targeted by such attacks and the damages they cause are in many cases more than significant.

However, it turns out that despite the fact that they could be affected at any time by these cybercriminal operations, 77% of Americans don’t know what the DDOS acronym stands for.

Furthermore, while some correctly answered that they would contact their DNS service provider when experiencing a DDOS attack, others would call Google, the police, a technology publication, the local electronic department store, and even their children and spouses.

The figures show that there’s a link between the household income and knowledge about DDOS attacks. The higher the income, the more people know about the topic. On the other hand, education levels are not a factor.

Male respondents were more informed than female subjects. Interestingly, almost half of Americans aged 65 and above would know where to seek help, compared to only 28% of 18-24 year-olds.