The Rise of Cybersecurity Attacks: What You Need to Know and How to Protect Your Business

The increasing frequency of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) cybersecurity attacks is not a new phenomenon. But these attacks are becoming more dangerous, targeted and detrimental. 

Comcast Business’s 2023 Cybersecurity Threat Report showed that out of 23.5 billion cybersecurity attacks detected last year, a staggering 210 million were attempted DDoS attacks to affect business operations by shutting down critical application servers and network resources.

In short, DDoS attackers are here to stay. Understanding how their tactics are changing, and how to take action to defend against them, will help businesses keep their operations secure and running smoothly.

Ease of executing DDoS attacks

2022 saw a continuing evolution of sophisticated DDoS activities, with greater concentration occurring in certain industries and a change in the manner of attacks. While some industries are at higher risk, all business sectors remain vulnerable.

As they’ve evolved, cyber-attacks have remained prevalent for several reasons.

First, they are quick and sudden. Short-burst attacks under 10 minutes long were the most common in 2022.  Multiple short-duration attacks can exhaust a business’s IT resources because the next one starts before the organization can deal with the previous attack.

What’s more, short-duration attacks are much harder to detect, especially if organizations try using firewall rate-limiting policies to stop them rather than carrier-grade services. While IT remains in an endless loop of dealing with multiple attacks, adversaries can use the distraction as a smokescreen to execute more insidious attacks elsewhere. 

What are the most targeted and susceptible businesses?

All businesses, regardless of industry, are targets of DDoS attacks. While it may seem more beneficial to perform a cyber-attack on a larger business, small businesses are the ideal candidates due to their small size and limited IT capabilities. While no industry is safe, those with unique vulnerabilities like customer information, business records or financial data are at an even greater risk.

Education is one of the most targeted verticals for DDoS attacks, accounting for 46% of attacks in 2022. The volume of technology used in schools and free WiFi networks make them attractive targets for DDoS attacks. Another highly targeted vertical industry is the IT and Technical Services sector, which accounted for 25% of attacks in 2022.

This industry offers a variety of potential vectors hackers can exploit — with attackers’ main goal being to look for sensitive information or to gain access to an end user. While IT professionals who work to resolve attacks for their customers are on the front lines, their own operations are left susceptible to attack, especially if their company is a small business. 

DDoS attacks against finance and healthcare businesses are common as well and accounted for 14% and 13% of attacks in 2022, respectively.

Healthcare and finance businesses are often targets due to the sensitive and valuable information they handle, including personal identification details, medical records and financial transactions. This data represents a lucrative opportunity for exploitation, whether to sell on the dark web or to use for fraudulent activities. 

How to bolster your defenses for the future

Mitigating DDoS attacks requires a multifaceted approach. The U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommends working with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to defend against DDoS attacks. That’s because even if you set up your own firewall protections to control incoming network traffic during DDoS attacks, only your ISP can effectively solve data overflow issues coming from the wider internet into your network.  

To help safeguard business networks, you must first learn how to spot a threat. While working with a DDoS mitigation service provider, businesses can learn to monitor traffic for a set of IP addresses that may indicate suspicious and/or malicious traffic.

Ensuring that malicious traffic is blocked at the entry point to a network is vital. For further protection, businesses can consider using comprehensive monitoring solutions and controls that provide real-time reporting and alerts. By learning about the makeup and characteristics of each DDoS attack, businesses can proactively adapt their defenses, effectively mitigate future threats and configure notification alerts.

If an attack gets past a business’s line of defense, network traffic can be dropped or limited as malicious traffic at the network’s edge, giving businesses time to act and set up a diversion. Once a threat is detected, service providers can divert traffic to distributed scrubbing centers capable of driving the malicious traffic away from the targeted infrastructure.

The final step is the delivery of clean, legitimate traffic back to a business network via a secure tunnel. And because an experienced provider led the process, internet downtime is exponentially reduced. 

Companies and organizations across industries are at risk for DDoS attacks, especially as they continue evolving. Staying informed about the growing vulnerability landscape and sophisticated tactics hackers use is crucial to not only defending against them but also saving time and resources in the long run.

To learn more about the Comcast 2023 Cyber Security Threat Report, or to request a consultation on cybersecurity products and services available through Comcast Business, visit Comcast Business online. 

This article is sponsored content.

Robert Thompson is the Vice President of Comcast Business – Mountain West Region