The consequences of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack extend far beyond financial loss. These attacks also damage a company’s relationship with its customers, according to research from Kaspersky Lab and B2B International.
The survey of over 5,000 businesses found that for 37 percent, a DDoS attack had damaged their reputation, causing profound harm to customer trust. Losing clients and suffering reputational damage was also seen as one of the most feared consequences of a DDoS attack for over a third of businesses (39 percent). These were seen as more problematic than the costs incurred in fighting and recovering from an attack (28 percent) or the loss of revenue and business caused by the associated downtime (26 percent).
The survey also found that over half of those surveyed had lost business data (57 percent) or access to business critical information (56 percent) as a result of a DDoS attack and 42 percent said that it had affected their ability to trade.
The research also revealed the widespread consequences of this form of cyber-threat at different levels of a business. For example, a third of businesses (33 percent) stated that a DDoS attack had damaged their credit rating and 35 percent reported an increase in their insurance premiums as a result.
www.kaspersky.co.uk
