Consumer Goods Sector Most Impacted By DDoS In 2016

The consumer goods sector has seen more chatter around DDoS than any other sector so far in 2016, according to data from SurfWatch Labs.

The consumer goods sector has become a popular target for DDoS attacks, with new groups like DD4BC emerging on the scene and attempting to extort money from victims in exchange for not launching a DDoS attack against them. Retail stores – especially online retailers – make appealing targets for cybercriminals as they are more likely to pay a ransom demand to avoid service interruption due to the amount of money that could be potentially lost during a DDoS attack.

Gaming networks such as Steam, Xbox Live, and the PlayStation Network are popular targets. Last week, the infamous cyber group Lizard Squad launched a DDoS attack against Blizzard’s gaming servers, effectively taking the servers offline for a couple hours.

DDoS attacks are a popular method of cyber-attack due to their ease of execution and price point. There are DDoS-for-hire services on the web that can be utilized for just $38 per hour. This price is shockingly low considering companies have reportedly lost anywhere from $5,000 to $40,000 per hour during a DDoS attack.

DDoS will remain a popular trend in cybercrime. However, DDoS related CyberFacts have decreased since peaking in January 2016.

Layer 7 DDoS Attack Makes Headlines

Earlier this month, a humongous Layer 7 DDoS attack was spotted reaching 8.7 Gbps of bandwidth through the Nitol botnet, which set a new record for this specific type of DDoS attack. While 8.7 Gbps doesn’t seem like much of a figure compared to traditional DDoS attacks of over 100 Gbps, Layer 7 DDoS attacks are different.

A DoS attack is an attempt by a criminal or hacktivist group to make a computer or network resource unavailable. This is done by interrupting a host’s services that are connected to the Internet. The most common method of DoS is a DDoS attack. DDoS attacks use botnets –- an enslaved group of computers –- to push massive amounts of communication to a targeted server to achieve its goal of service disruption.

A Layer 7 DDoS attack has the same end goal as a traditional DDoS attack, except for a few small differences. It only needs to use a small amount of network packets to disrupt service as this will create massive server processing operations that will exhaust a target’s CPU and RAM resources. This means that a Layer 7 DDoS attack can be pulled off by sending only a few thousand requests per second.  

As recent DDoS attacks have shown, cybercriminals have a variety of different ways to disrupt services or attempt to extort money from organization. Businesses should be prepared for the possibility of these attacks and work with a reputable DDoS mitigation company if they are concerned about those risks.