7 Things to Know About Today's DDoS Attacks

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks continue to be a weapon of choice among threat actors seeking to extort money from victims, disrupt operations, conceal data-exfiltration activities, further hacktivist causes, or even to carry out cyberwar.

What was once a threat mostly to ISPs and organizations in the financial services, e-commerce, and gaming industry, has become a problem for businesses of all sizes. A small company is just as likely these days to become a target of a DDoS attack, as a big one — and for pretty much the same reasons.

The wide availability of botnet building kits and so-called "stresser," "booter," and other DDoS-for-hire services has made it possible for almost anyone to launch a DDoS attack against targets of their choice. It is no longer just the nation-state actors and APT groups that have access to DDoS infrastructure these days, but common cybercriminals and script kiddies, too.

The implications of these trends are enormous for organizations. Here are some alarming data points: