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“When your website is taken offline, it can cost businesses over $6,500 a minute in lost revenue, so it’s understandable why some organizations choose to pay the ransom. But this is a dangerous game, because just a few willing participants encourage these threats to spread like wildfire,” warned Larson.Furthermore, Larson stressed that rather than trying to negotiate with criminals, organizations need to be fully prepared to defend their networks against such cyber attacks. “Our research data indicates that DDoS ransom attack threats are not only increasing in frequency but also being used by cyber criminals in new and creative ways to extract money from victims," Larson added. "For example, low-level, sub-saturating DDoS attacks are usually used as a precursor to ransomware attacks. Because they are so short – typically less than five minutes in duration – they are usually not detected by security teams and allow hackers to find pathways and test for vulnerabilities within a network which can later be exploited through other techniques,” he said. Additional findings from the survey included:
- 59% of those surveyed worry that their ISP does not provide enough protection against DDoS attacks
- 24% of respondents believe that their ISP is to blame if a DDoS attack affects their business
- 53% believe that ISPs are hiding behind net neutrality laws
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