Without the right kind of protection and contingency, companies are vulnerable to DDoS attacks that could harm their business. – Reuters file pic, January 28, 2015.Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks cost companies thousands of dollars in losses, which also impacts the balance sheet and a company's reputation, an IT security firm said today.Kaspersky DDoS protection head Eugene Vigovsky said a DDoS attack on a company’s online resources could cause average losses of between US$52,000 (RM188,177) and US$444,000 (RM1.6 million)The amount of the losses depended on the size of the company but the expense incurred had a serious impact on the balance sheet and company's reputation.DDoS is a type of attack where multiple compromised systems, which are usually infected with a Trojan virus, are used to target a single website in order to "paralyse the website", especially those with high online activity, such as banking websites, sportsbetting websites and online shopping sites.In a statement, Vigovsky said a successful DDoS attack can damage critical business services, leading to serious consequences for the company."For example, the recent attacks on Scandinavian banks (in particular, on the Finnish OP Pohjola Group) caused a few days of disruption to online services and also interrupted the processing of bank card transactions, a frequent problem in cases like this."That is why companies today must consider DDoS protection as an integral part of their overall IT security policy."It is just as important as protecting against malware, targeted attacks, data leak and the like," Vigovsky said.He gave figures as examples, saying the total costs to the company reflected several problems.According to a study by Kaspersky Lab, 61% of DDoS victims lost temporary access to critical business information.Other figures included 38% of companies reporting they were unable to carry out their core business, while 33% of respondents reported the loss of business opportunities and contracts.In addition, in 29% of DDoS incidents a successful attack had a negative impact on the company’s credit rating while in 26% of cases it prompted an increase in insurance premiums."The experts included the costs of remediating the consequences of an incident when calculating the average sum."For example, 65% of companies consulted with IT security specialists, 49% of firms paid to modify their IT infrastructure, 46% of victims had to turn to their lawyers and 41% turned to risk managers."Vigovsky also pointed out that these were the most common expenses incurred.Furthermore, information about DDoS attacks and subsequent disruption to the business often becomes public.Recently, Malaysia Airlines was targeted by international hacker group Lizard Squad, which posted screengrabs of bookings made by various people, including that of a Cabinet minister.The screengrabs were posted after the national carrier denied that its website had been compromised.The group posted the photo of bookings made with MAS on the Lizard Squad Twitter account @LizardMafia which included a booking made by International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed from Subang (Selangor) to Kota Baru (Kelantan).MAS had earlier issued a statement insisting its website was secure after a message posted by an entity claiming to be from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) militant group appeared on the flag carrier's website front page.Mocking the statement by the embattled national carrier, the group posted: "[MEDIA STATEMENT]: We would like to point out that @MAS is lying about user data not being compromised. Refer to earlier imgur link."@MAS Are you really that clueless? Wait until we package this nice present for you," it also said after posting a link to the photo with the bookings with "lolol" (which means laughing out loud).After news of the hacking broke, the group scoffed at MAS and posted on its account, "Write Lizard Squad on your forehead, thanks. @MAS"The Lizard Squad is a group of hackers that has caused havoc in the online world before, taking credit for attacks that took down the Sony PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live network last month.MAS later said the incident was not hacking, rather, users were redirected to a hacker website when they keyed in www.malaysiaairlines.com, due to a compromise on its Domain Name System (DNS) which translates a domain name to the Internet Protocol (IP) address.Hundreds of Malaysia Airlines passengers complained it was difficult to access details of bookings due to the compromised DNS. – January 28, 2015.
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