Risk managers need growing awareness of denial of service attacks

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks continue to evolve at an alarming rate, causing major concern for CIOs, CSOs and CEOs across South Africa, according to cyber security experts. Bryan Hamman, territory manager for Sub Saharan Africa at Arbor Networks, warned: “Not only are the attacks getting bigger (some orchestrated attacks are topping a mammoth 800 Gbps), but they’re also getting more complicated: with multi-vector attacks simultaneously targeting different areas of the victim’s infrastructure, and IoT devices like cameras and DVRs being weaponised into devastating zombie armies of botnets.” He has suggested seven steps that risk managers can recommend to their companies to help step up the levels of protection. These include spending time researching and understanding the threats. Mr Hamman said: “Find out which types of attacks are most common in your industry. What are the current trends? Who else has been affected by DDoS and what were the repercussions? What were the motives behind these attacks? Inside your organisation, what information and services are of most value and could be the targets of DDoS attacks?” Another suggestion is to go back to basics and do these well. “Cyber criminals will always look for soft targets,” he explained. “So, before we get into the sophisticated solutions for application-layer attacks, let’s first ensure that the basic principles of good network security are in place: secure all network devices and change any default passwords, rather than using Telnet, FTP and HTTP, use SSH, SFTP and HTTPS. Address the threat of DNS reflection/amplification by disabling recursion on authoritative name servers and limiting recursion on authorised clients.” Also, do not rely on existing cyber-security tools, which do not address the issue of network availability, he added. “From a technical standpoint, you need to protect your network resources 24/7 through a multi-layer deployment of purpose-built DDoS mitigation solutions. A Cloud-based, Intelligent DDoS Mitigation System helps to ensure you’re technically well prepared for the evolving nature of DDoS attacks,” he said. Setting triggers and alerts for suspicious activity is only possible if you have a deep understanding of the traffic absorbed by your network at different times of the day, or different times of the month. Mr Hamman said it was key to know which are your high-priority users that direct large volumes of traffic your way and ensure they are whitelisted and not treated suspiciously by your early-warning alert systems. This knowledge, he said, will help to set the parameters that define the early stage of an attack, helping you to respond faster, while ensuring that you do not create poor experiences for your valid network traffic. Forward planning is always essential and Mr Hamman said stress testing systems in advance of any attack was another crucial part of winning the battle. He suggested that, when attacks strike, stress levels escalate and companies will need a firm plan to work through the process of blocking and neutralising DDoS attackers. “Make sure your plan details ‘who’ within your company and your managed security partners is there to help, and ‘how’ you should contact them. Make sure you have a clear internal incident handling process that describes all the interactions and steps to be taken. “In many cases, DDoS attacks are used as a smoke-screen for far more sinister data exfiltration attempts elsewhere on the network – your processes need to account for all possible attack types. Finally, test out your defence plan with regular simulation drills,” he stressed. Acting quickly is also essential and then, finally, Mr Hamman said it is important, in the event of an attack, to proactively address customer frustration and avoid over-burdening the service desk, by readying a status page with a simple, clear, apologetic message, to confirm that systems are unavailable and that the team is working on a solution.

Risk managers need growing awareness of denial of service attacks

Want to read this article?

Read Next

International SOS warns of ‘burnout epidemic’

Risk managers want software providers to integrate more AI tools

Court says German government must tighten up climate protection

UK market must innovate rather than exclude emerging risks: BIBA

EC probes Meta for alleged breaches of Digital Services Act

International SOS warns of ‘burnout epidemic’

Risk managers want software providers to integrate more AI tools

Court says German government must tighten up climate protection

UK market must innovate rather than exclude emerging risks: BIBA

EC probes Meta for alleged breaches of Digital Services Act

Want to read this article?

Read Next

International SOS warns of ‘burnout epidemic’

Risk managers want software providers to integrate more AI tools

Court says German government must tighten up climate protection

UK market must innovate rather than exclude emerging risks: BIBA

EC probes Meta for alleged breaches of Digital Services Act

Related Articles