UK businesses are continuing to lose billions of pounds each year through an insufficient focus on safeguarding systems from attack by hackers and hi-tech extortionists.
What are Cyber Extortion Attacks?
Mostly found to be Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS), these attacks affect many online businesses on a daily basis. Examples are not bound by any particular industry and include various sectors such as betting, gaming, travel and government.
Disrupted services results in loss of customers and brands are irreversibly damaged in a matter of hours. This form of crime cost companies $4.61 billion in 2005 according to UK's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit.
The true extent of the damage inflicted by DDoS is unclear due to the fact that many businesses are loathed to admit that they have been a victim of cyber extortion and therefore may be vulnerable to future attacks. If network access or systems are critical to the business, then DDoS counter-measures should be part of the business continuity planning and a realistic budget security set.
Combating the attacks
There is a need to plan for worst-case scenarios and ensure that a multitude of measures have been taken to reduce and minimise the chances of an attack and the ability to cope with one if it occurs.
It is clear that firms who do business online are falling victim, but simply cannot afford the effects of this type of crime.
The level of exposure that firms currently face given the congested nature of the public internet and the way in which information (transit) is moved around the globe and controlled by internet service providers at different tiers in the internet community, shows that it is in need of strategies to help combat such attacks.
Improved understanding of the potential threats (including those affecting upstream suppliers) is required and a possible solution could perhaps be increased use of private networks which operate outside the public internet.
Such networks avoid congestion providing fast, secure and reliable online business and transactions to all users. This is appropriate given the weaknesses of the internet as we know it, which herald from its origins as a tool for academic institutions to share data.
Bandwidth suppliers have a central role to play in advising the best mix of solutions that will prevent and reduce the impact of an attack. There is a need to balance confidentiality with greater co-operation between organisations and tackling the issue of cyber extortion head on.
