Expect more severe DDoS attacks this holiday season

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are likely to last longer than usual during the upcoming holiday season, particularly against companies with e-commerce presences.

“Last year we saw attack durations spike in the last three weeks of the year,” said Neal Quinn, Vice President of Operations at Prolexic Technologies, a company that specialises in DDoS protection services.

According to Prolexic figures, the average length of a DDoS attack is between one and three days. But, Quinn said, “Our data shows that the two highest average attack duration figures for the entire year - six days and almost eight days - were recorded during the last two weeks of the year.”

With a longer attack duration, the likelihood of downtime increases, as does the potential financial impact of a DDoS.

This is particularly bad news for companies with an e-commerce presence.

“E-commerce companies are particularly susceptible to DDoS attacks during the fourth quarter holiday season as attackers like to cause the most chaos and make the largest possible financial impact. For many businesses, a significant percentage of yearly revenues are made in the fourth quarter and a serious DDoS attack can be financially devastating,” a statement from Prolexic read.