Kaspersky Lab: 43 Percent Of DDoS Victims Believe Rival Firms Are To Blame

Businesses believe they are more likely to be targeted by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks from rival firms than cyber criminals, according to Kaspersky Lab.

The research found that 43 percent of businesses who had fallen victim to a DDoS attack believed their competitors were behind it, while just 38 percent considered cyber criminals the more likely suspects.

Industrial sabotage was believed to be the most likely reason behind a DDoS attack, far and away ahead of disgruntled former employees (21 percent) and political-motivated attacks by foreign governments (20 percent).

DDoS attacks

Over half (56 percent) of DDoS victims in Asia Pacific blame their competitors, with 33 percent blaming former staff and 28 percent pointing the finger at foreign governments.

In Western Europe the pattern is the same; 37 percent of businesses suspect rival firms are to blame and 17 percent pinpoint foreign governments as the likely suspects.

Business size also seems to have an affect on perceived attack origins, as smaller firms are more likely suspect their rivals of staging DDoS attacks against them. 48 percent of SMBs believe this to be the case, compared to just 36 percent of enterprise organisations. Respondents from larger companies tend to place more blame on foreign governments and former employees.

“DDoS attacks have been a threat for many years and are one of the most popular weapons in a cybercriminals’ arsenal,” said Russ Madley, Head of B2B at Kaspersky Lab UK. “The problem we face is that DDoS attacks can be set up cheaply and easily, from almost anyone, whether that be a competitor, a dismissed employee, socio-political protesters or just a lone wolf with a grudge.

“It’s therefore imperative that businesses find an effective way to safeguard themselves from such attacks.”

DDoS attacks have quickly become a big concern for businesses. Corero Network Security warned organisations to expect bigger and badder attacks in 2017, while Imperva finished 2016 by fending off the largest attack ever recorded on its network.

These warnings followed the high-profile attack which took down DNS host provider Dyn last year, with more recent incidents including outages at Lloyds Banking Group and the Australian Parliament website.

Quiz: Is your cyber security knowledge up to scratch?