Ransomware has received a lot of attention recently but an older threat, extortion by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, also demands our focus. By making servers or services unavailable, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks can be crippling to both an organization’s finances and its brand reputation. Once all the costs of an attack were factored in — reactive spending on software or infrastructure, brand management repair, increased insurance premiums, security consultant fees — a recent survey showed that DDoS attacks on large enterprises cost an average of $440,000 per incident.

Adding the element of “extortion” to this type of attack magnifies both the gravity of the situation and the potential for financial loss to the targeted organization. Discover how cybercriminals are using DDoS attacks to disrupt business by preventing legitimate users from accessing websites.

Read the X-Force Research report: Extortion by distributed denial of service attack