3 Reasons Why DDoS Protection is Your Best Investment

by Eden Amitai on April 8, 2020

DDoS protection can easily be compared to a car’s airbag system: it’s hard to appreciate its true value until it’s needed. Like airbags, DDoS protection provides invaluable peace-of-mind and a constant safeguard against the lurking threats that no one wants to think about, but must always prepare for.

With DDoS attacks on the rise, and likely here to stay, now is as good a time as ever to consider the benefits of acquiring protection…and the costly problems that can arise without it.

DDoS Attacks Aren’t Going Away

Today, DDoS attacks come in all shapes and forms. They can be caused by professional hackers, frustrated competitors, former employees, nation-state sponsored groups, or even an unhappy customer seeking to wreak havoc and disrupt service availability.

DDoS attacks can span anywhere from layer 3/4 volumetric attacks to sophisticated layer 7 low and slow ones. According to Radware’s research, one in three organizations will face a DDoS attack at some point. With the rise of botnet for hire over the dark web, launching powerful DDoS attacks is easier than ever and all organizations who fail to prepare themselves will continue to face a tremendous risk.

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With internet traffic continuing to become more secure through encryption, protecting against encrypted floods has become mandatory for companies who wish to defend themselves against invisible threats.

Cost of Attacks

According to Radware’s research, the estimated cost of a cyber attack is $1.1 million. Having DDoS protection in place is more than just a network safeguard, it also provides an excellent ROI when utilized. A few key aspects should be considered when calculating the potential cost of an attack:

User experience. According to Gartner research, 89% of companies compete primarily on customer experience. As consumers feel more empowered than ever to publicly review products and services, ensuring a consistent experience is crucial. When a network is impacted by DDoS attacks, it negatively affects how users interact with a company’s product or service. They likely won’t be able to access their desired resources and their experience can suffer from service degradation or complete outage. DDoS attacks jeopardize hard-earned trust with customers, and any resources spent on customer retention and acquisition may go to waste.

Brand reputation. Digital relations are all about trust. Before even reading a vendor’s terms and conditions, users willingly fill in their credit card information and personal data because they feel a mutual trust exists between the two parties. How will those customers feel when they find out a vendor wasn’t able to stop cyber attack they could’ve easily prevented? No matter the scope of the attack, consumers will likely feel a sense of betrayal and uncertainty towards the company. Trust is hard to earn, but it’s very easy to lose.

Customer loss. Cart abandonment, out of stock, 404 errors, and unreachable pages are all issues that can be caused by DDoS attacks and they all have a meaningful, tangible impact on a business: direct loss of revenue. Spending thousands of dollars on marketing campaigns won’t convert customers to buyers if the network is unavailable at the crucial times they’re using it.

Emergency Onboarding is Costly, Difficult, and Unpredictable

If a company finds itself under attack and their security team is busy with damage control, it will be a major challenge for them to simultaneously handle the complicated onboarding process of acquiring DDoS protection last minute.

Furthermore, onboarding to a cloud DDoS protection service requires the help of internet service providers, and a provider may not always be available to help in a timely manner due to their own needs. Since an onboarding process can take up to several days to complete due to reasons out of a security team’s control, this can leave an organization vulnerable to crippling DDoS attacks if they’re not fully prepared in advance.